4.0 out of 5 based on 1 reviews. – Customer review on 27/03/2008

This is a pretty thorough guide to SharePoint development and useful for people developing for both Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). The book uses C# as the programming language but (mostly) Bleeker does provide Visual Basic equivalents on the CD. Also on the CD are many worked examples and model answers for the exercises in the book and colour versions of the graphics in the book.

Bleeker delivered this book soon after the product was released and therefore has been around for some time. There are a few references that have been superceded (such as reference to the Visual Studio 2005 (VS) add-ins for WSS).

The first chapter is a primer on WSS and is a useful overview of the product. Bear in mind the audience for the book is developers so administrators will get limited benefit from it. The three chapters (four if you count AJAX-style web parts) on building web parts give a thorough understanding of how web parts hang together and what is happening behind the scenes. In reality, it is simpler to build a web part from the VS add-in as most of the work is done for you. Nevertheless, there are good explanations about complex topics such as signing your code that SharePoint developers need to be aware of.

Bleeker takes his reader through setting up an extranet WSS site, which is a good worked example, using ASP .NET 2.0 authentication providers. This may be a little complex for the unititiated to ASP .NET 2.0 development. However, the end result is quite interesting and has many potential uses.

On the whole, I have found this to be a useful resource, but it needs to be part of a library of resources. I found Hillier (ISBN-10: 1590598091) a useful addition especially if you are developing for MOSS.