APPENDIX
Additional Help and Resources
Developing for SharePoint involves bringing together a number of technologies, including SharePoint, developer tools, and web development technologies. To be effective in developing in SharePoint, you need to understand the resources available to help you, both from Microsoft and from the community. There are high-quality tools and documentation available from both resources.
HELP FILES FROM MICROSOFT
The key resource from Microsoft that every SharePoint developer should download is the SharePoint SDK. The SDK comes in two versions, one for SharePoint Foundation and another for SharePoint Server. You should download both sets of SDKs onto your development machine. You can find the SDKs at the Microsoft SharePoint Development Center at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint.
ONLINE HELP FROM MICROSOFT
One of the key resources available online for learning to develop with SharePoint is the MSDN Development Center for SharePoint at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint. Besides the Center, there are a number of other resources to look at, including the getting started website for SharePoint development at www.mssharepointdeveloper.com. In addition, Channel 9 from Microsoft has a number of videos available at http://channel9.msdn.com/tags/sharepoint/ to help you get started developing with SharePoint.
One key resource to keep track of is the SharePoint team blog. On this blog, the SharePoint team posts relevant information about SharePoint that customers and partners would be interested in. The blog is located at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint — redirected to http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blog/Pages/default.aspx.
The last resource is the SharePoint Developer Documentation team blog. This blog is the location where the developer documentation team posts important information that may not be in the SDK, or best practices for developing with SharePoint. You can find the blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepointdeveloperdocs/ — moved to http://blogs.msdn.com/bZsharepointdev/.
HELP FROM THE COMMUNITY
SharePoint has a rich community when it comes to developing community-driven tools. For example, the Community Kit for SharePoint: Development Tools Edition is available at http://cksdev.codeplex.com/. In addition, there are a number of other online resources that you should review as you develop your SharePoint solutions. The following list shows some of the sites that might help you with your SharePoint development.
- Paul Andrew's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/pandrew/
- Arpan Shah's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/arpans/
- Andrew Connell's blog: www.andrewconnell.com/blog/
- SharePoint Dev wiki: www.sharepointdevwiki.com
- Bamboo SharePoint blog: http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/sharepoint-2010/default.aspx
- Joel Oleson's SharePoint blog: www.sharepointjoel.com/default.aspx
- Jeremy Thake's blog: http://wss.made4the.net/default.aspx
- Eric Harlan's blog: www.ericharlan.com/
- Fabian Williams' blog: http://fabiangwilliams.wordpress.com/
- Steve Fox's blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/steve_fox/
- CodePlex: www.codeplex.com/
- Steve Peschka's blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/