Sharepoint 2013

[easyrider]

TBH I am not enjoying SP 2013 development much at all. The product requires 16GB RAM just to get a development box to run it for chrissakes! Then default functionality is that when the user clicks 'logoff' they are not properly logged out, instead MS presents a message to screen 'please close your browser to log out properly'. WTF. Unbelievable.
Requirement is to integrate the product with federated claims authentication (eg all users can use their facebook login). and this is also a undocumented complete PTA.
There is no documentation available for SP2013 administration (which is where we are struggling as we are .NET developers...) as the books have not been published.
Clientco want an extranet, intranet and internet all on SP2013, deadline is looming and we cannot get a SP 2013 admin in at all, so guess who has to push the site toward live ? Me.
A team of 3/4 developers for that lot. Thinking of bailing out!!!
Anyhow had an interview for a finance role which sounds promising. All custom .NET insurance SOA services, claims matrix and all that. Only downside seems to be that I have to relearn VB.Net from C#.

[redgiant]

yeah we were going to start going down the Sharepoint route where I am - it was touted as the next best thing and could do anything you wanted.

problem is no body could actually decide what to do with it.

It works as a good document management system and is go for collaboration etc but it just seemed to be expensive for any bespoke developments and so in the end it seemed to dissapear up it's own jacksie.

Would be interesting to hear from anyone who does use Sharepoint and what they use it for...

The project I mentioned before is a document management system for around 3,500 users across EMEA. In a nutshell it manages document configuration (i.e. versioning, gives each doc unique DocIDs, enforces naming convention and does several other doc config tasks), stores doc templates, has basic team sites which provide a way for users to see related documents in one place (to work on them collaboratively), allows users to search for documents using FAST search and lastly it has limited MySites (personal sites but these are not fully implemented i.e. it provides the user with a list of documents they have worked on - none of the more advanced features). Pretty standard approach but where support becomes difficult are the numerous UI changes that the clientco wants to the OOTB product.

[bobspud]

yeah we were going to start going down the Sharepoint route where I am - it was touted as the next best thing and could do anything you wanted.

problem is no body could actually decide what to do with it.

It works as a good document management system and is go for collaboration etc but it just seemed to be expensive for any bespoke developments and so in the end it seemed to dissapear up it's own jacksie.

Would be interesting to hear from anyone who does use Sharepoint and what they use it for...

The other ugly little secret it has for web development type stuff is the nasty mess it makes of your firewall. I had a cowboy at a previous client honestly sit in a meeting and tell me that he needed 20000 TCP ports opened up so that the front end could talk to the database. I gave the guy a total roasting and called his parentage an profession into doubt. Then I wandered off to have a look and Lo and behold there is Mickysoft openly telling admins that in order to use the service you would need some 20,000 ports opened as the traffic would be random.

Turns out there is a workaround but that also effects Active Directory as the reg hack also limits this service to the same ports...

I am quite confident that the chap that claimed to be a SP dev knew less than I do (thats next to nothing!)

So I also watch this thread with interest...

[original PM]

yeah we were going to start going down the Sharepoint route where I am - it was touted as the next best thing and could do anything you wanted.

problem is no body could actually decide what to do with it.

It works as a good document management system and is go for collaboration etc but it just seemed to be expensive for any bespoke developments and so in the end it seemed to dissapear up it's own jacksie.

Would be interesting to hear from anyone who does use Sharepoint and what they use it for...

[redgiant]

2013 has changed so that the custom code is installed as an app (there is an office store for sharepoint apps like google play)
The idea is that the sharepoint beast itself is not compromised by custom code. But the security model takes some getting used to. Otherwise the custom app could nacker sharepoint.
This also means that there is an upgrade path.
So you think that being a normal c#, mvc, asp net coder is not very specialized? Think I'd agree. I've a pal who works on JDE (a old erp system) he gets good rates around 500 a day. Good when you consider that it is a pretty basic old erp system (eg no web services even). There is just nobody else with the skills.

MS were saying similar things with SP2010 with WebPart sandboxing. However many of the support problems my dev team encounters is around UI customisations so I'd have to check to see how this changes with 2013. It's too late for this particular project for the clientco but as SP2013 has been released now it maybe something for the future for them.

[easyrider]

2013 has changed so that the custom code is installed as an app (there is an office store for sharepoint apps like google play)
The idea is that the sharepoint beast itself is not compromised by custom code. But the security model takes some getting used to. Otherwise the custom app could nacker sharepoint.
This also means that there is an upgrade path.
So you think that being a normal c#, mvc, asp net coder is not very specialized? Think I'd agree. I've a pal who works on JDE (a old erp system) he gets good rates around 500 a day. Good when you consider that it is a pretty basic old erp system (eg no web services even). There is just nobody else with the skills.

[redgiant]

Contractors specialise in what the client wants!

HTH

but I agree with JMO about the pishy mattress and Sharepoint, of course 2013 is different... 2010 was different... etc. etc.

If you use it for what it is, it's a very good product. Trouble is nobody does!

One of projects I'm managing is a large SP2010 dev project and agree the core SP2010 product is pretty sound however clients always want customisations which affect the core product which in turn make it very difficult to support i.e. the next CU or Service Pack may break the changes that have been made. Very frustrating for both sides

One of the big difference with SP2013 over previous versions is the integration with Office 365 - which IMO is a large growth area as MS are pushing this over traditional on premise office licences. Just wish MS supported O365 better as they do have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot with it!


As for becoming a specialist there is a demand for it and if the market is there (which there is for SP Developers from what I can see) it is better to be a specialist of something than a jack of all trades/languages.

[easyrider]

My thinking was that there would be less competition for sharepoint contracts compared with mvc wcf etc.
Career guidance is what I need. No sooner have I started a job than I want to move onto somewhere else, with a better rate!
Now if you want a double pishy matress with some dog sh1t as a side try Biztalk.

[Bacchus]

Contractors specialise in what the client wants!

HTH

but I agree with JMO about the pishy mattress and Sharepoint, of course 2013 is different... 2010 was different... etc. etc.

If you use it for what it is, it's a very good product. Trouble is nobody does!

[easyrider]

Which version?

2013 is different : I'm building mvc 'apps' which are sort of hosted within sharepoint. Sort of hosted... it actually redirects to another web server which hosts the mvc app.
I'm still not convinced, but the work does have variety I suppose.

[jmo21]

I'd rather eat a pishy mattress than work with sharepoint again, even though you can get good rates with it.

Custom dev FTW!

[easyrider]

Does anybody reckon that it's better to specialise in sharepoint rather than asp. net, mvc, wcf, c# and that usual lot?
Reason is I'm working permanent (and not liking it), and the project is using sharepoint 2013. Which nobody knows much about heh ho.