Comments on Matt Blodgett: SharePoint is the Future of Microsoft-centric Soft...

Matt, I'm with you. I became interested in Sha...

2011-10-08T11:29:41.683-04:00

Matt, I'm with you. I became interested in Sharepoint as a collaboration platform but suddenly saw that it is the correct platform for everything, because everything is better when maximally integrated with everything else.

Interesting article. At a level - so high I would...

2011-08-26T15:37:46.743-04:00

Interesting article. At a level - so high I wouldn't bet a dollar on it - I would agree. What SharePoint tries to do is a logical future for the enterprise space. However, Microsoft sucks at innovation. If SharePoint is the future of Microsoft, I would bet lots of dollars against them in the long run. At core, they have "designed" SharePoint to be a revenue stream for old technology (Web Forms, FrontPage, and mounds of XML working like concrete for abstraction). I doubt, in terms of TCO and ROI, most business really have a clue what they are getting into when they leap into the SharePoint kool-aid pool. SharePoint is such a horrible platform that for most business use cases, you would be much better off writing everything from scratch or extending or integrating better, open source software. Most companies (if ever) don't find that out until it's too late. I hope someone comes along and takes the Enterprise space from Microsoft. After suffering as a SharePoint developer for years, I think they really deserve to lose it.

Sharepoint is just a web application framework. If...

2010-04-16T05:58:16.375-04:00

Sharepoint is just a web application framework. If you want to build an ecommerce system in sharepoint you can, see http://shop.durex.com for example

Sharepoint MVC? no problems, check out http://www.themedicinecabinet.co.ukthis is a Sharepoint publishing site using ASP.net MVC 2 as its presentation layer

The bottom line is Sharepoint will take over. I ge...

2010-04-14T15:48:52.028-04:00

The bottom line is Sharepoint will take over. I get why alot of programmers are scared of this, you wont have jobs soon, so ya its a concern for you. jump on the band wagon, I know I have.

Did someone actually say winforms? And they live i...

2010-03-30T17:42:18.972-04:00

Did someone actually say winforms? And they live it. rofl

WinForms is a dead art and is barely alive and only exists because projects are too expensive to update.

Regular asp.net doesn't cut it nowadays either. Too much wasted time when MVC or Sharepoint has the boiler plate code.

I'm not encouraging either and Apple and a few others are fighting the web craze with google pushing it forward.

And with the world going mobile it brings a riff that even bring back the dieing art of winforms.

I'm starting to get on the Sharepoint bandwagon because all the jobs now are sharepoint or MVC TDD.

Disagree. Saying ASP.NET is dead because of Share...

2010-01-28T15:29:36.405-05:00

Disagree. Saying ASP.NET is dead because of Sharepoint is like saying custom dev is dead because of linux... it just doesn't make sense. A product directed for a certain purpose cannot replace a whole platform. It just never will be. Most people have never even heard of Sharepoint. Even if ASP.NET died, Sharepoint will not replace it, something like Silverlight would.

A few reasons why Sharepoint will never become the standard:
The Sharepoint API is terrible
No integration with silverlight
The test/deploy method of Sharepoint custom dev has always been very tedious
The sharepoint learning curve is high. A programmer cannot just jump in and accomplish what he or she wants without a year or two of working with it

I agree. Sharepoint is Microsoft's last hope in th...

2009-05-26T19:32:59.314-04:00

I agree. Sharepoint is Microsoft's last hope in the web wars - which will only play well with big business. All else is taken over by MVC applications in the open source world. ASP.net will survive only because of Sharepoint. And Sharepoint is ONLY surviving because of Microsoft Office. I've been working with Sharepoint for many years and the only reason we keep it is because of Office.

"I'm not even really sure what SharePoint is suppo...

2009-05-04T14:06:00.000-04:00

"I'm not even really sure what SharePoint is supposed to do or why it offers any advantages over plain old web development."

Sharepoint will give end users like me (I'm an accountant) more control over corporate information. Without having to go through the IT "middleman". Just like "QuickTax" gave people more control over their own tax returns, without having to go through the Accountant "middleman". :)

Everyone else has covered the specifics, so I'll j...

2008-09-06T17:24:00.000-04:00

Everyone else has covered the specifics, so I'll just focus on the general: you're confusing SharePoint, as it exists today and as SharePoint v14 will exist tomorrow, with a mythical "fairyland SharePoint" of legend.

I'll point out a few places where you do this:

"Expect future versions of SharePoint to be MVC-based." - if you've dug into SharePoint enough, you'll realize this is too tall an order. If they do somehow manage to work "SharePoint" on top of the MVC framework, you will either have a) something that doesn't work, or b) something that doesn't resemble SharePoint at all today. It won't happen for SharePoint v14 (due out next year or so) so we don't have to REALLY think about SharePoint MVC until what, 2011? At the earliest?

Next: "Silverlight + web parts = crazy delicious" - I've covered Silverlight elsewhere. Don't confuse the THEORETICAL POTENTIAL of Silverlight with the DAILY PAIN of working with Silverlight in its present form. Maybe Silverlight v3 and/or some out of band releases will improve the situation? Also, big ups for the "chronic-what? cles of narnia" reference.

"Data entry scenarios are handled with InfoPath. Windows Workflow Foundation ties everything together." If you've worked with either of these products directly, you would disagree. Maybe your experience differs from mine; from what I've seen the summary is "InfoPath is good for the simplest 10% of your data entry scenarios; for the other 90% you're better off doing an ASPX page" and "SPD Workflow is useful for 0-5% of your needs" and "SharePoint VS Workflow is so incredibly painful to learn and use, that I don't recommend anyone use it. Avoid completely if you can."

So after dogging on your post, let me clarify: yes, I agree the POTENTIAL is there. On paper SharePoint is the ultimate app platform, and in practice it's even living up to the hype in some areas.

If I could clearly summarize my points, it would be two things:

1. You shouldn't assume SharePoint works as well as it claims it does,

2. Nor should you assume that future versions will be "better" or will "improve" for any reason.

Once you remove those assumptions, you'll...well, you'll be where I am :)

Peter (full-time SharePoint guy)

"'..that we could do for one hundredth of the cost...

2008-09-03T16:15:00.000-04:00

"'..that we could do for one hundredth of the cost with plain old web development.'

You're exaggerating quite a bit there, but yes, that sort of thing does happen. I've witnessed it first hand. Unfortunately, the demand for SharePoint continues."

Actually, I've seen cases where it's way cheaper than 1/100th of the cost. A client of mine isn't going to be able to go from CMS 2002 to MOSS, because of the licensing change from per cpu to CALS. With a userbase of 200k+ users, the licensing fee is outragous. SPS doesn't quite have the features they need, so things can be developed a heck of a lot cheaper with custom development. It's ashame MS abandoned their processor license.

@Rob

I'm with you, man. I feel the same way...

2008-08-20T09:33:00.000-04:00

@Rob

I'm with you, man. I feel the same way.

I'm biding my time until I can jump to a better platform (hopefully Rails). In the meantime, SharePoint work is paying the bills nicely.

I hope you are right actually. I hate Sharepoint ...

2008-08-20T00:34:00.000-04:00

I hope you are right actually. I hate Sharepoint with a passion and if you are right then it will give me a great excuse to do Ruby and Mac development full-time and not worry about turning down lousy Sharepoint work.

@Nathan

"But do your enterprisey clients wa...

2008-08-15T11:04:00.000-04:00

@Nathan

"But do your enterprisey clients want SharePoint because they like it, or because your marketing droids told them it would cure cancer?"

It's a little of both. Clients are amazed when they see 80% of their app done in a week. What they don't see until later is the weeks/months of excruciating work it then takes us to crowbar the remaining 20% into an ill suited platform.

"Usually the small ones just need a website, which we can either base on a CMS or do it relatively statically."

I would say that Rails and its ilk would be a perfect match for smaller clients like that.

"For the larger clients, typical projects involve gathering data then reporting on it to save some poor employee from generating reports by hand in Excel. That seems pretty enterprisey"

Yes, that's a good example of enterprise-type stuff. SharePoint is the future for that category of app where the client is heavily invested in Microsoft stuff, especially Office products (which is many, many companies). Data entry scenarios are handled with InfoPath. Windows Workflow Foundation ties everything together.

But do your enterprisey clients want SharePoint be...

2008-08-15T10:40:00.001-04:00

But do your enterprisey clients want SharePoint because they like it, or because your marketing droids told them it would cure cancer? I really am curious what's driving this SharePoint scourge^Wdemand.

As for our shop, we do have some large clients and some small ones. Usually the small ones just need a website, which we can either base on a CMS or do it relatively statically. For the larger clients, typical projects involve gathering data then reporting on it to save some poor employee from generating reports by hand in Excel. That seems pretty enterprisey, but perhaps you could give me an idea what enterprisey means to you.

@Mike

I'm sure your having a great time...

2008-08-15T10:40:00.000-04:00

@Mike

I'm sure your having a great time doing WinForms & WPF. I'm sure it's a lot more pleasant than working on web apps. But that doesn't change the fact that desktop apps are becoming increasingly irrelevant over time. I stick with my statement that WinForms & WPF are marginal players. I bet my company sees about one desktop app project for every one-hundred web app projects. And that might be generous.

I don't know if I can swing _$2_ but I'll try. :-)

@Nathan

"None of our clients have shown any...

2008-08-15T10:26:00.000-04:00

@Nathan

"None of our clients have shown any interest in SharePoint. Perhaps that's because we haven't tried to sell it to them."

I'm not sure what kind of projects your shop generally works on, but SharePoint is like crack to "enterprisey" types. If you gave them a taste, they'd be banging your door down. :-)

"Even if we wanted to sell clients on SharePoint I'm not sure we could. I'm not even really sure what SharePoint is supposed to do or why it offers any advantages over plain old web development. (Same goes for BizTalk and any number of Microsoft products.)"

Again, I'm not sure if you guys do a lot of "enterprise" apps, but if you do, you'll be dragged kicking and screaming to SharePoint eventually. The demand for SharePoint in the enterprise is becoming overwhelming for my company (and it's not just us).

"Hats off to the marketing weenies who screw good companies out of millions of dollars for SharePoint-based applications that we could do for one hundredth of the cost with plain old web development."

You're exaggerating quite a bit there, but yes, that sort of thing does happen. I've witnessed it first hand. Unfortunately, the demand for SharePoint continues.

"Our shop will sooner move to an open-source environment than develop for SharePoint, which may prove your point."

Exactamundo. Now's the time to make that leap if you're not interested in SharePoint and enterprisey-type work. For the love of god, start learning Rails, Django, etc. You'll save your clients a boatload of money and be happier to boot.

@Jon

"There are tons of happy ASP.NET devel...

2008-08-15T10:08:00.000-04:00

@Jon

"There are tons of happy ASP.NET developers who aren't going to move to Ruby on Rails. ASP.NET continues to evolve, and it's a great platform for developers who want to work with the tools they know."

Keep in mind I'm not talking just about RoR, but RoR-like frameworks that are more productive for non-enterprise apps. I think if ASP.NET developers don't adapt on their own, the market will force them to adapt or force them out.

"Sharepoint isn't a great fit for most web applications..."

I agree, but why is the demand for SharePoint so intense?

"you can't built MySpace, e-commerce, etc. applications in Sharepoint."

I disagree with the word "can't" in that sentence, but I agree with your point. SharePoint is not well suited for those types of apps and won't be popular for such scenarios (but some people will try anyway).

"I'll bet you $1 you're wrong, let's check back in 10 years, okay?"

You're on! :-)

"Are you serious? They're so irrelevant, they're n...

2008-08-14T19:31:00.000-04:00

"Are you serious? They're so irrelevant, they're not even worth discussing. The Web won. Get over it. They're marginal players at best."

In your little slice of the world maybe, but honestly, sweeping generalizations like this are not productive. People have been proclaiming the death of the desktop app for a loooong time and it hasn't happened yet.

I'm doing nothing but winforms/wpf development at the moment and I love it.

Oh, and I'll follow Jon's lead...I'll bet you $1 you're wrong. ;-)

None of our clients have shown any interest in Sha...

2008-08-14T19:03:00.000-04:00

None of our clients have shown any interest in SharePoint. Perhaps that's because we haven't tried to sell it to them.

Even if we wanted to sell clients on SharePoint I'm not sure we could. I'm not even really sure what SharePoint is supposed to do or why it offers any advantages over plain old web development. (Same goes for BizTalk and any number of Microsoft products.) If we can't even figure out what it's good for we sure as hell can't sell it to our clients. Hats off to the marketing weenies who screw good companies out of millions of dollars for SharePoint-based applications that we could do for one hundredth of the cost with plain old web development.

Our shop will sooner move to an open-source environment than develop for SharePoint, which may prove your point.

I don't buy it. There are tons of happy ASP.NET de...

2008-08-14T18:02:00.000-04:00

I don't buy it. There are tons of happy ASP.NET developers who aren't going to move to Ruby on Rails. ASP.NET continues to evolve, and it's a great platform for developers who want to work with the tools they know. For instance, I don't see MySpace jumping ship for Ruby on Rails any time soon.

Sharepoint isn't a great fit for most web applications - it's great in an intranet environment, but it's got a very limited and targeted featureset. Again, you can't built MySpace, e-commerce, etc. applications in Sharepoint.

I'll bet you $1 you're wrong, let's check back in 10 years, okay?