SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach

Some folks like to cook from recipes. You get a predictable result and you know what to expect. My wife will attest that that's not exactly the kind of guy I am. I've created meals that are good and a fair number of them that weren't fit for the dog to eat - literally the dog wouldn't eat them. Still, I recognize the value of recipes. That's why I think SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach is a good read if you're trying to wrap your hands around SharePoint. One of the problems with typical computer books is that they'll tell how WHY something works but not HOW to make it work or WHEN to use it. (My own personal rebellion to this is The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users which is all about HOW to do things.) That's why I like the style which shows you how to do practical things. You can read the details of some interface on MSDN, you don't need a book for that. What you need a book for is HOW you should use it.

In nearly all the technologies I work with, I like to see working examples of code that I can "R & D" (Rob & Duplicate). This holds even more true for new stuff I'm learning, and SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes by Mark E. Gerow is a great book that's already given me ideas for routines I need to build. Contents: Site Management; Working with Users; Working with Lists; Working with Web Parts; Working with Event Handlers; Working with Templates; Modifying Pages with JavaScript; Advanced Dishes; Index As stated in the title, Gerow takes the "recipe" approach to this book, in that each chapter is loaded with working code that is detailed and complete for a specific task. You can then use the code "as is", or you can start with it as your base program for whatever twist you need to add. Each solution includes the type of application it is (like ASP.NET web app or web part), the assembly and class library references you'll need, the classes that will be used, along with any special considerations that need to be kept in mind for this particular program. The preparation section gets you set up to start, and then you have the "recipe" in VB *and* C# (so you can use whatever is most familiar to you). The wrapup has the instructions on how it runs (along with any applicable screen prints), and any variations you might want to consider. There's also a piece in there that I love, which is the process flow of the solution. It's a simple flowchart that outlines in plain language what is occurring, as well as all the decision branches that are made along the way. I find this invaluable when you're first starting out, as you may not yet be adept at reading code to see the overall flow. Consider the flowchart the "Cliff Notes" of what is going on in the program. Even as a beginner, this book works well for me. I was impressed to see the author's statement as to whether this was a beginner or advanced book. He's more interested in whether the book gave you information you didn't already have, or made the information you had much more usable and accessible. It's that bent towards practicality that drives the entire book, and it's one that I'll be using time and time again as I continue working my way through the SharePoint jungle.

Mark's problem-solution approach to building SharePoint solutions is very practical and effective. Most technical SharePoint books today are too focused on showcasing various features of SharePoint yet it doesn't address challenges SharePoint developers encounter. For each recipe, I really like how Mark would state the problem first and then define special considerations in building the solution. In addition, the process flows laid out reinforces the significance of properly analyzing the problem prior to coding the solution. My favorite recipe is a Recipe 7-2: Opening List Items in a New Window - this is a common solution users would ask for. His straightforward solution using JavaScript and content editor web part was easy to follow. I highly recommend this book to SharePoint developers who wants to build solutions to common challenges encountered in the SharePoint environment.

Having worked with SharePoint technologies since their introduction as SharePoint Portal Server 2001, I was pleased to see that the topics covered in this book, "SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes" by Mark E. Gerow, were fairly good ones. The topics highlighted the object model concepts involving sites, lists and document libraries, security web parts, and custom event handlers. This book brought together some of the most commonly used SharePoint object model techniques that are used when building customizations, ranging from site provisioning and setting up users and groups to creating custom web parts and manipulating lists. The coverage of using list event handlers was the high point of the content, as this is not something that is well-documented elsewhere. The text was also full of code samples. A reader that is fairly new to using the SharePoint object model may find these code samples difficult to adapt into their own solutions, however, as very little explanation was provided around the main classes or method calls that are solving the problem at hand. However, for a single developer or small team that has some experience with SharePoint through the documentation provided by Microsoft, this text provides a nice collection of additional code samples and ideas that offer another perspective on the available customization paths for SharePoint. True to its title, this book is a "recipe" book. The text was very light on the theory behind the code, how the pieces fit together, and how the overall solution worked. In fact, most of the coding recipes presented were introduced around a specific problem, with the code to address that problem following. There was little explanation of why some of the logic was required, which would make it difficult some someone less familiar with SharePoint to take these recipes and adapt them to their own unique situation. The examples presented were very thorough, with the source code presented in both VB.net and C#. While this provided for some very comprehensive examples, the entire source code was included in both languages, rather than the code for just the concept being illustrated. This made the text unnecessarily long, and cumbersome to read. Even though the code contained little white space, to keep the book from being too lengthy, it did so at the expense of readability. The business logic for each code sample was presented through a flow chart diagram, which is a somewhat outdated manner of documenting process flow. A simple narrative and/or bulleted-list of points included with each example, to highlight what the code is doing would have been sufficient, based on the nature of the code samples presented. Having the flow charts in this context only provided a poor example for novice developers to potentially follow and use in documenting their own solutions.

What a great book. This book is an essential resource to any Sharepoint Consultant. It provides code in both VB and C#. Some of the excellent sample including using Sharepoint to add users to AD. It also covers events handlers and when to use them. Something i have had trouble finding good resources. If anything i would question how long the book would be without the code examples. All up though a great book.