Microsoft's evangelist could help elevate the discussion about SharePoint.

Mike Drips published an article today on Informit.com titled "Five Things Wrong With SharePoint." I have a few issues with his points. Please read his article and then my comments below. (The numbered items apply to the five things in Mr. Drips' article.) Feedback is encouraged!

Things Wrong in "Five Things Wrong With SharePoint"

#1. It's a crappy mish-mash of multiple technologies

"...you find a great many of the core files are written in JavaScript."

My definition of "a great many" would be somewhere between one-third and one-half. I looked in the "60" directory on my server. It contains 408 folders and 6,324 files. The number of JavaScript (.js) files: 39!! That is .6%.

While Microsoft training does not offer a class on JavaScript, there is no lack of training providers.

Mr. Drips complains that professional programming SharePoint requires knowledge of many technologies. Let's look at this list:

CSS, HTML, XML	What high-end web applications do NOT use these?
ASP.Net (the platform) Visual Studio.Net (IDE)	When developing using a different environment (WebSphere, Java), wouldn't I also need to know the platform and IDE?
Language (C# or VB.Net)	Again, an issue in any environment

By the way, the same list of technologies applies to the blogging tool used for to write this post: dasBlog.

#2. The development team is playing the Longhorn card

While "four years of no product improvement" is likely, how many enterprise-wide applications are upgraded by customers every year? The required investment in migrating and testing makes it hard to justify repeated upgrades. (I have seen many organizations with Windows 2000 servers still running because the applications they support are working fine.)

#3.  There are two SharePoint products, which is confusing

• How many Office products are there? (http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/howtobuy/compare.mspx)
  
• How many Visual Studio products are there? (http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/)
  
• How many Windows XP products are there? (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.mspx)

I don't think this should be "tagged" on SharePoint when it applies to a lot of the Microsoft product line.

#4. Support for SharePoint is lacking.

In my experience, blogs that are written about a product are usually focused on solving problems, not being critical. Maybe it is just the echo chamber effect...

I think it is wrong to categorize "nearly all" the bloggers as apologists for Microsoft. I don't apologize for Microsoft. I am trying to help others.

Things Right in "Five Things Wrong With SharePoint"

#3. There are two SharePoint products, which is confusing

As I mentioned before, this applies to a lot of the Microsoft product line.

#4. Support for SharePoint is lacking.

Is it time for Microsoft to close down the microsoft.public.sharepoint.teamservices newsgroup?

In my biased opinion, there are other good community resources not mentioned: SharePoint Blogs and SharePoint University forums.

5. Microsoft has not stated a strategic direction for SharePoint

Sad, but true. There is a lot of "customer evidence," but I can't find a roadmap.

---

Mr. Drips' conclusion, however, is somewhat positive:

Despite its lack of support and direction from Microsoft, SharePoint Portal Server still remains a viable product for an Intranet portal, document library, and company forum. To make all of those pieces work takes a tremendous amount of effort and education that — unfortunately — is not readily available to the end user community.

I am doing my best!! The Intranet Portal aspect is covered on IntranetJournal.com.

When using document libraries in SharePoint try to avoid the temptation of creating nested folders.
Edward Ferron: SharePoint Tips #1

I wholeheartedly agree! I have lost count of the number of times that I am asked why documents in a folder are displayed inside a web part. The "list" nature of document libraries is just not compatible with folders, IMHO.

I went so far as to create a document library template that has a text column named "Folder" and groups the entries on that column.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, David Downing was discussing his company's system to target ads to cable viewers based on the "clickstream" of viewer's remote controls: (The emphasis is mine.)

Q: Will people have a chance to opt out of this if they want?
A: You'd have to ask the cable companies who are our clients. The hope is that consumers will actually want to opt in. If cable companies can earn more ad revenue, cable bills may stay low or even go lower.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jun2005/nf20050628_8566_db061.htm

Newsflash: Cable bills are not low. And they will never go lower!!!

I wrote before about the Apress eBookshop, focusing on the reduced price of the books. One other benefit: the PDF files are searchable! A perfect feature for a reference book or users guide.

I am reading the new book from Apress titled SharePoint 2003 Users Guide, written by Seth Bates and Tony Smith. So far, I have only made it thru the first 6 chapters, but I wanted to get my thoughts published as I go along.

The first half of the book covers the core SharePoint features and in my opinion covers them very well. The book provides step-by-step instructions for most tasks, as a Users Guide should. This book is also a good reference for users familiar with WSS who are transitioning to SPS. There are many places where the text takes the "pieces" from WSS and SPS and stitches them together.

Sprinkled throughout the chapters are tips. I found many of these to be very helpful. As an example:

"When filtering a paged view the filter is applied to the entire list, not just the items on the currently displayed page."

The best content that I have read so far is the coverage of lists. The introduction to the chapter on Custom Lists has the following quote:

"Lists in SharePoint also allow you to control how the information is displayed, who has the ability to alter or view the information, and whether new content must be approved before it appears in the list. The ability to customize lists allows SharePoint content structure and data to be maintained by business users rather than having to rely on your IT staff."

This is a very powerful idea, and every content manager should keep this in mind. In my experience, the best SharePoint installations occur when content managers understand this idea and exploit SharePoint's features. The rest of the chapter provides all of the information a user would need to follow this advice.

The chapter on the built-in lists (called Template Lists) is recommended for all WSS/SPS users. The authors cover each list type in detail and contain examples of common uses. In particular, I liked their coverage of the lists in a meeting workspace.

The second half of the book covers SharePoint-based solutions (Document collaboration, Meeting Managment, etc.). Look for another post when I complete those chapters.

The latest article in my SharePoint series on Intranet Journal went live today:

 Enabling Users to Maintain SharePoint Content

While most of the beginning of the article is basic coverage of the Content Editor Web Part, this article lays the foundation for the discussion of tools and techniques to help site users post and organize content with minimal technical assistance. In the months to come, I will cover these tools (custom Web Parts and custom Web Part Page templates) in depth.

I welcome your feedback or article ideas.

So, I thought I would send one his way...

I have been completely busy for the last few months, but I do have some posts in the queue:

• A review of the SharePoint 2003 User's Guide (Hint: so far, I LOVE IT!)
  
• FabriKam 3.1
  
• O/R Mappers. Specifically, Paul Wilson's and Microsoft's
  
• Interesting SharePoint WebParts

As always, your feedback is welcome.

Hey, I’m Tony Schreiner, a developer on the IE team...There have been a lot of questions and speculation about IE7's tabbed browsing feature, so I wanted to give an overview of some of the work we've done that you can look forward to seeing in Beta 1.
IEBlog: the Microsoft Internet Explorer Weblog

Great information about the current thinking going on within the IE team. No mention of a date, however. 

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Powerful stuff. DasBlog, we they suck less!

Scott Hanselman

The next article of my SharePoint series on IntranetJournal is now available.

Part 4 describes a method for integrating a legacy Web application inside a SharePoint site.