M. Oryszak said
Provides a good technical overview of the platform as well as overviews of the different development options. This should be your starting point when considering development on the SharePoint platform.
Avid Reader said
I have 15+ years development experience on the Microsoft Platform (in C/C++, C#, VB/.Net etc). I am trying to pick up SharePoint (WSS+MOSS) development as an additional skill. I bought this book because of the reviews on this page. In retrospect I am very surprised by them. I am about half way through the 4th chapter and I am about to chuck this book in the trash can. After reading the first two chapters I stopped and read Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services Step by Step from Microsoft Press and Beginning Beginning SharePoint 2007 Building Team Solutions with MOSS by Wrox Press (from cover to cover) to better familiarize myself with the product. I came back to this book and it's still not helping me much. Terms are being thrown around without being introduced at all. The writing style of the authors seems to be such that they assume you already know the subject inside out (in which case, I wonder, why would anyone read a book with a title like this one). I hope they understand what they have been saying in there. Perhaps it would help someone who already has a lot of experience with the subject matter and wants to use this book as a reference (though it is not tagged as a reference but rather a development book). The author is constantly referring the reader to WSS SDK. Dan Attis - I already have the SDK. If I wanted to read it why would I buy this book? I'm looking for some structured learning material here. I've just about had it with all the details being out of scope of this book. Here are a few examples so far from Chapter 4 alone:
Page 104 "The details surrounding the schema.xml file that is used to define a List Definition is beyond the scope of this book but can be researched at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms459356.aspx."
Page 116 "A more complete examination of the child elements of the Module element is beyond the scope of this book."
Page 124 "This last task is beyond the scope of this book and will not be demonstrated; however, feel free to peruse the SDK and see how easy it is to accomplish."
Page 131 "The details of implementing field editor controls are beyond the scope of this book but, as always, are described in detail in the SDK."
Page 149 "The meat and potatoes of list schemas are beyond the scope of this book, but if you are the curious type, take a look at the Features for each of the out-of-the-box lists because that is where their list schemas are now defined."
Page 152 "The details on how to use these classes are beyond the scope of this book"
... and I am only about half way through this chapter. The stated goal of the chapter is to familiarze oneself with the various features whose details the author refuses to go into.
I wonder which part of the words "Professional" and "Development" didn't the author understand? Did the technical editor do his/her job? Was the book even reviewed before it was published? I would say this is a very unprofessional and sloppy work.
There was a time when Wrox Press used to have a support email address where queries about the content of a book could be sent. In the past I have had responses from the said email address. Now they have P2P forums which apparently no one seems to read. Nice work Wrox press. Let the consumers who paid their hard earned money to buy the book help each other out, if they can. Great business plan.
I am starting my search for a different book starting now.
G. Harris said
Overall a good read, but needs some help:
A) More WSS3.0 related matter, this book's primary focus is on MOSS
B) Better coverage of Web Parts, including AJAX development as well as custom list definitions may have been helpful.
Eugene Desyatnik said
There are portions of this book (particularly business data catalog) containing 10 pages in a row of nothing but printed code. The book does not have a cohesive feel, and often does not go into a lot of depth. A chapter on BI is nice, but fails to provide a list of what your options are for the Microsoft end-to-end BI stack, and their respective merits(proClarity, PerformancePoint, panorama, SSRS, SSAS, etc).
SharePoint Guy said
Some of the chapters are totally beneficial while others offer very little and explain things poorly.
I guess if it fits a need it;s worth it, but there was nothing in here you could not Google when needed. i guess it's supposed to take a programmer and show them how to program with SharePoint. if you have time to go page by page and are new to SharePoint you will get more out of it.
I would stick with the Ted Pattison book persoanlly...
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