The most common development task that I have encountered is the creation of Web Parts. Web Parts are widgets or gadgets or otherwise small components of user interface functionality that you can flexibly incorporate into your web pages. As of SharePoint 2007, Web Parts are not unique to SharePoint—in fact, they are directly from ASP.NET's WebControls namespace.

SharePoint 2010 has numerous out-of-the-box Web Parts that you can immediately incorporate on your page. So, please first familiarize yourself with all of these Web Parts and their capabilities! I am continually surprised by the number of times I have seen new SharePoint developers create a Web Part from scratch that effectively recreates out-of-the-box Web Part functionality. This chapter will be relevant for you if you have made the decision that you must create your own Web Part using Visual Studio 2010.