Patterns & Practices Summary: SharePoint Guidance

Intro

In this article, I want to review the guidance called “SharePoint Guidance” from the Microsoft pattern & practices division. This guide is intended for SharePoint developers / architects, it describes the basic principles of building systems on this platform. Outstanding representatives of development for SharePoint worked on the manual, as well as he stubbornly keeps in the list of the most active projects on CodePlex . Next, a little more.

Manual description

The manual actually consists of several aspects:

1. SharePoint Guidance Library - a library of the most used and useful functions, such as configuration management, data layer abstraction, event logging and service infrastructure
2. Documentation, which describes in detail all the principles of building the examples given, as well as guides on the main issues arising in the development on SharePoint.
3. Contoso Partner Portal Reference Implementation is an exemplary application on MOSS of some company Contoso , which is an extranet portal, the application uses practices that are closest to industrial solutions.
4. Contoso Training Management Reference Implementation is a simple HR department application that demonstrates the basic principles of building solutions on the WSS.
5. QuickStarts - two small examples of the simplest applications on SharePoint, as well as data access

In addition to the source codes and unit tests for them, examples are also installation scripts, build scripts, which are actually artifacts of a properly established software production process, which is very significant and useful from a practical point of view.

Guide Review

The first version was released last year (Dec2008), the second version of this manual is currently available (Aug2009), and we’ll talk about it.

• Introduction - a small introduction, as well as recommendations for development tools: VSeWSS , U2U CAML Query Builder , CAML.NET , Typemock Isolator
• Developing SharePoint Applications - the main development scenarios for the platform, as well as its key features
• Design and Development Guidelines - displays the key points of the SharePoint architecture, as well as describes approaches for solving various development tasks for the platform; describes recommendations for project life cycle management
• Application and Design Patterns - one of the most interesting chapters, it describes how the classic patterns of building corporate applications fall on solutions for SharePoint
• The SharePoint Guidance Library - a library description with all the key features and components to develop.
• Integrating Line-of-Business Systems - description of integration with existing corporate systems
• Considerations for Content-Driven Applications - here you can learn how to properly build applications for storing content.
• Considerations for Enterprise-Scale Applications - recommendations for creating enterprise-wide applications.
• Considerations for Extranet Development - recommendations for the development and planning of extranet portals
• Partner Portal Reference Implementation - description of building an example application for MOSS
• Training Management Reference Implementation - description of building an example application for WSS
• QuickStarts - application description for easy start working with SharePoint

Criticism

This guide contains a lot of practical, useful information, but in some technical solutions my point of view differs from its creators, and therefore I started the Sapphire project : the SharePoint Application Framework , which will also be a framework for building solutions on SharePoint, as well as include examples of solutions and the necessary components in daily development.

SharePoint Guidance Resources

Download the full version for August 2009 here:

• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=91f3c22c-8be7-4721-9449-84f699337d55&displaylang=en

SharePoint Guidance is also presented on CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/spg/ here you can ask questions of interest and download all the latest changes.

Also, some chapters from SharePoint Guidance are presented in the video on channel 9:
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• Setting up the Contoso RI - p & p Developing SharePoint Applications guidance
• Walkthrough of the Contoso Reference Implementation- Developing SharePoint Applications guidance
• How to use the configuration component? - p & p Developing SharePoint Applications guidance
• How to use the logging components? - p & p Developing SharePoint Applications guidance
• How to use the SharePoint Service Locator? - p & p Developing SharePoint Applications guidance

SharePoint resources

TechNet has a huge number of articles and books on SharePoint, of course, they don’t pay so much attention to development, however, it’s quite useful for creating a visibility platform: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262788.aspx

SharePoint Developer Center here you can find almost everything you need for developing on SharePoint