Matthew Knott

Lets get something straight, I hate Microsoft SharePoint.

Not because it's a bad product or it's expensive licensing, it's because I'm a web developer being bullied and backed into a corner by it.

I actually think SharePoint is good for some things, its Active Directory integration, it's ease of use and powerful feature set, but it should know it's place. 

Microsoft may lead you to believe that it's all powerful with it's Master Pages and .net 2.0 framework construction, but in truth, it is not a good platform to build custom applications into. Even what should be a no brainer for something so powerful, connecting to an SQL database and returning tabulated data, is an absolute chore of the highest calibre.

I'm tasked with building bespoke solutions for a SharePoint portal, and the only way I can do this is through what are called webparts. These webparts are actually quite powerful, if a little limited, in that to build a multi-page application, you need to build lots of webparts and piece them together in multiple sharepoint pages.

It's a total bind, but I'm warming to them, looking at the positives I can deploy a web part across a huge number of different web portals very quickly, without duplicating any code. That's it for the positives so far, I'll let you know how I get on....