The SharePoint Hillbilly

Droid X Review… iPhone Killer?

Mark Rackley — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 22:42:16 GMT

I’m taking a break from SharePoint blogging to do a product review for you guys. I know, it’s hard to believe that I would have an opinion.

So… I did something I don’t normally do. I waited in line to buy a Droid X on its release July 15th. I’m generally not the type to HAVE to have the coolest and the newest stuff. I usually just secretly hate those people and wait for prices to come down. However, this time I decided to steal my wife’s phone upgrade and jump on what I thought would be an awesome phone.

First, let me say that this phone is NOT an iPhone killer. There is not a phone out there that will kill the iPhone. The Apple fan-boys will buy anything Apple throws out. I still don’t think a big iTouch is revolutionary AT ALL. The only iPhone killer out there is Apple itself, and they seem to be trying really hard at the moment to alienate their customers. OK, I’ll get off my Apple rant… By the way, I don’t hate Apple. I have an iTouch and love it and the only reason I have never bought an iPhone is because I have Verizon and not AT&T. I’ve used iPhones before and I owned a Droid previously to purchasing the Droid X. Everything being said, I would choose a Droid X over an iPhone (or Droid) any day.

Droid vs. Droid X

So, the obvious comparison is the Droid X vs its predecessor the Droid. The Droid is an awesome phone and I have been really happy with it.

The screen on the Droid X is obviously larger and the regular Droid screen looks cramped by comparison (although it never felt that way prior to the Droid X).

You lose the physical keyboard on the Droid X but the onscreen keyboard is larger and with Speech-To-Text I rarely use the keyboard anymore anyway.

Your camera goes from 5mp to 8mp which is cool but don’t know if you’ll notice if you never take your photos off the camera. You get more home screens, more widgets, and more applications on the Droid X.

You get HDMI output on the Droid X, but I haven’t tried it yet so can’t tell you how well it works.

There’s a lot more differences like memory, and CPU speed, and others that I won’t go into because none have impacted me yet as an every day user. Although I will say that overall the Droid X seems to be more responsive and perform better. However, You still need to install some sort of application killer on the Droid X so you don’t accidentally eat up all its memory (which i did while playing around on it). There’s a reason why Apple didn’t want you multi-tasking.

Overall the Droid X is a very solid upgrade to the Droid.

Pros

So, let’s get down to some details. What’s good about the Droid X?

Screen

I LOVE the screen on this thing. Everyone keeps asking me if the screen is too big. It’s not. Really, it’s the perfect size. It’s big enough that the screen doesn’t feel cramped but small enough to carry without feeling like you are lugging around a tablet. You can read web pages without having to zoom in and it feels great when you navigate using your fingers. The on screen keyboard is also improved because of the bigger screen. You won’t miss the physical keyboard at all.

Interface

So, instead of three home screens like on the Droid you have seven home screens on the Droid X. At the moment I can’t fathom how I’ll fill them all up but I imagine in a few months I’ll wish I had 9 home screens. Definitely a big improvement though. Also the buttons on the bottom of the screen (settings, home, return, and search) are now physical buttons. It’s funny how such a small change can make such a big impact to user experience. It’s nice to be able to push the physical ‘home’ button to bring the screen back up instead of having to hit the power button. Oddly it gives the Droid X a much more polished feel. The interface has a lot of minor tweaks and a lot of new social networking integration that I have barely looked into as well.

Mobile Hotspot

The mobile hotspot is a really cool feature. It allows you to use your Droid X as a wireless router for up to 5 devices. I have NOT tested this out yet as it costs $20 a month extra and I still use my work BlackBerry when I need to tether. Very cool feature though.

Camera

As previously mentioned the camera on the Droid X is 8mp instead of the 5mp on the Droid (which I thought was awesome). Also, you can shoot video in HD which is cool but probably eats up your meager looking 16gb SD card.

Flash is coming!!

So yeah, Flash support is coming for both the Droid and Droid X on October 1st. This is huge and I hope it works well. Now if I could just watch Netflix movies on the phone and I’d be all set. I know.. I know.. you are supposed to be able to watch Netflix movies on the Windows 7 phone… if it EVER comes out???

Blockbuster App

So, there’s a cool Blockbuster application that allows you to rent and buy movies on your phone. Very cool concept and I tried it out by renting “The Book of Eli”. Except for the time needed to download (via Wireless only) it was a painless process. There’s a lot of potential here if they can figure it out. It’s not quite ready to conquer the world though.

Cons

Of course there will be some cons as well, especially when you buy something the day it comes out! Some of these are actually pretty bad and might be bad enough for you to wait for Motorola and Google to work out the bugs.

Speaker

The speaker on the Droid X is not as loud as the Droid and I honestly think it is not loud enough if you have a song for a ring tone. I have no idea why they would have changed this as I thought the Droid had one of the best speakers in a phone I’ve ever heard.

GPS

I LOVE the GPS on my Droid and used it all the time when traveling. I made the mistake of going on a trip the SAME DAY I bought the Droid X to a place I’d never been before. So, I was depending on the GPS to get to my location. I wasn’t concerned because I’d been very happy for the most part with the GPS on the Droid. Well, I used the voice search to tell the Droid X to navigate to my destination and it came up and I was on my way. While driving I noticed I hadn’t heard any update from my GPS lately and I looked down at it… It was locked up. Not only that, but I had to completely power it off to get the GPS back, and guess what? I missed a turn. I had to turn around and back track. I was NOT happy at all. Not only that, but the GPS locked up THREE MORE TIMES on the way to my location. If you rely on the GPS I’d wait for an update before purchasing the Droid X. Weirdly enough, the last time it locked up I hit the “back” button on the Droid X and it brought up an error screen. After I cancelled the error screen the GPS came back and it didn’t lock up again for the remainder of the trip. Still.. I hope they fix it soon.

MP3 License Error

I was playing the MP3’s from the SD card on my Droid which contain many songs that I ripped from CD’s I OWN. There is a particular song that I ripped (from a CD I owned did I mention?) and when the music player tries to play the song I get an error that says “license expired” and the speaker turns off. No sound at all.. First of all, the license didn’t expire and second of all why do I have to turn the phone completely off and back on to get the sound back even it was a song where the license expired? I have no clue what’s going on here and it only happens with one song. So, maybe no one else will experience this problem, but if it happened with several songs I’d be taking the Droid X back immediately.

Battery Life

So, if you are going to be making a device as cool as the Droid and Droid X you REALLY need to do a better job about creating a long lasting battery. When you see this thing you just want to play with it. Whether you are playing the demo of “Need For Speed” that comes installed or renting a movie from Blockbuster, you just don’t want to put it down. Well, be warned, that battery lasts about 3 or 4 hours with heavy use. The Droid had the same problem and I understand that it takes some juice to run the apps, WiFi, speaker, GPS, and light up the screen but it would be great if I could go through a day of “normal use” without having to charge it in the afternoon.

Blockbuster App

So, the Blockbuster App is really cool, but not quite ready for prime time and so close to being something awesome. The HDMI output does not work for the Blockbuster videos, so you HAVE to watch it on the phone. Also, the price to “rent” or “buy” a movie is way too high. $3.99 to rent and $17.99 to buy. It’s REALLY hard to justify this cost when a RedBox movie is only $1 and popping up all over the place and it takes just as long to download a movie as it takes to drive to the said RedBox. Seriously Blockbuster, lower your price to be competitive and I’ll use it more often. It’s just much more convenient (and costs the same) to do Video on Demand on Dish Network or rent the move through the PlayStation Store. Also, you need a wireless connection to download a movie so you can’t download a movie at the airport while your waiting for a flight unless the airport has decent internet access. By the way, there is a cool RedBox application that will allow you to search and rent movies from local RedBox locations.

Droid X “Selt Destruct”

So, yeah, apparently if you try to jailbreak or hack your Droid X it will self destruct:

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/07/14/droid-x-actually-self-destructs-if-you-try-to-mod-it/

This is not a huge concern to me because I hardly have the time to mess with hacking my phone. I realize this will keep some techies from making the purchase but I don’t think the mainstream consumer will care at all. Still, kind of interesting from a company that embraces open source to do something so draconian.

Conclusion

As I already stated, overall the Droid X is a solid upgrade from the Droid with a lot of promise. There are several minor glitches which I’m sure will be patched soon and so far none that can’t be overlooked for a V1 (although the GPS issue comes close). If you are comfortable being an early adopter and expecting some minor issues, go out and get a Droid X today. You won’t be disappointed. If you are easily frustrated with technology though and don’t want to have any problems, then wait a couple of months just to be safe.

Hey, on the bright side, no matter how I held the phone I never dropped a call…

Creating SharePoint Solution Packages! So easy an Admin can do it!

Mark Rackley — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:26:21 GMT

First of all, I must apologize for letting my blog go fallow… pretty good use of ‘fallow’ though, right? I mean how often do you get to throw that word around? I guess playing ‘Farmville’ wasn’t a total waste of time!

Anyway, I’ve been up to my elbows in projects and family time and have just not had a chance to blog lately. So… where to start… oh yeah… Stop copying files directly to the 12 hive! Seriously.. I don’t care what the file is… custom controls? java script files? images? web parts? If you are copying it to some sub folder under the 12 hive directory, then stop it! It’s bad practice, a pain to maintain, and it will bite you in the rear at some point. I don’t even like doing it on my dev VM.

Isn’t this a dead horse that has been beaten beyond recognition?

So, yeah. This is an old topic and people have pretty much settled on whether they are going to create packages or not for the most part. But I got a question from an admin/developer friend of mine the other day that wanted to test some JavaScript files and she asked me if she needed to copy the files to every Web Front End. This made me scratch my head. Why is she just not creating a solution package for these files? That way SharePoint handles putting the files where they go AND you can easily retract the files if it doesn’t work. The answer is simple, she didn’t realize how easy it was to create solution packages! Many people just find it too daunting to create all the XML files or even knowing WHICH files need to exist and the file structure. Let’s face it, unless you are developer you most likely don’t have these file formats memorized. Isn’t it just easier and faster and better to copy the files over manually? Why waste the time? right??? NO!!! Not Right… give me your “Geek” card right now.

But it’s such a pain to package everything…

No.. it’s not… it’s REALLY not. There are some great tools out there to aid you and you don’t have to even open an XML file. With a couple of drag and drops you have a package ready to deploy.

It’s just so much faster to copy the files…

Maybe on a single WFE instance it is, but otherwise.. no… it isn’t. When you take into account that you have to copy your files to every WFE and make sure they stay in sync it can quickly turn into a non maintainable mess. Why go through the headache when you can deploy and retract a solution as needed? It will automatically get put on every WFE and they will stay in sync… ugh… thank God boy bands are gone by the way…

But I don’t know HOW to package these files…

Stop your whining! Why do you think I created this blog?

So, let’s get started then…

What tools do I need?

So, you’ll need to download a couple of tools.

STSDev – Yes.. STSDev.. I know there are other tools out there, but I still have not found a good reason to use any of the others. These guys did a tremendous job of doing all the heavy lifting for you in this tool. You can download it from CodePlex here: http://stsdev.codeplex.com/

A SharePoint Dev Environment with Visual Studio – Don’t have / can’t afford one? No worries, Microsoft has a VHD you can download with Visual Studio already installed. It bombs after 30 days, but you can just use it over and over for 30 days. Hey, you gotta start somewhere? right? You can find the 2007 VHD here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=67f93dcb-ada8-4db5-a47b-df17e14b2c74&displaylang=en If you already have a SharePoint Dev environment, but not Visual Studio, you can try downloading the Visual Studio Express version and use it. It can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-CS Now, I have NOT confirmed that STSDev will work with the Express version, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t. I’ll try and confirm this for you, but don’t hold your breath. :D

So, install Visual Studio if you haven’t (I’m using VS 2008 on my VM, so my screen shots will reflect that), then install STSDev.

All set?

Let’s create a solution package!

You need two more things to create a package.

A file to deploy
The location to deploy it to.

So, got any ideas for this learning exercise? Here’s a common problem. Many people want to get rid of the “My Settings” link on the user menu. There’s some JavaScript out there to do this, but I hate relying on JavaScript because it’s so easy for someone to get around it. You might be thinking Custom Action, but I have not been able to get that to work (nor have I found anyone successfully removing that link with a custom action). So! What can we do? The best solution I have found is to take the Welcome.ascx user control that the Master Page uses and create a new control. This is actually very easy. Grab the Welcome.ascx file from the 12 hive here: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES. Rename it to CustomWelcome.ascx (or whatever you want) and modify it so it looks like:

<%@ Register Tagprefix="SharePoint" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> <%@ Register Tagprefix="Utilities" Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities" Assembly="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %> <%@ Import Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint" %>
<%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.Welcome,Microsoft.SharePoint,Version=12.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"   AutoEventWireup="false" compilationMode="Always" %>
  <SharePoint:PersonalActions AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_menu_ak%>" ToolTip="<%$Resources:wss,open_menu%>" runat="server" id="ExplicitLogout" Visible="false">
    <CustomTemplate>
     <SharePoint:FeatureMenuTemplate runat="server"
         FeatureScope="Site"
         Location="Microsoft.SharePoint.StandardMenu"
         GroupId="PersonalActions"
         id="ID_PersonalActionMenu"
         UseShortId="true"
         >
         <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="ID_LoginAsDifferentUser"
                 Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuser%>"
                 Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_loginasdifferentuserdescription%>"
                 MenuGroupId="200"
                 Sequence="100"
                 UseShortId="true"
                 />
         <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="ID_RequestAccess"
                 Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_requestaccess%>"
                 Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_requestaccessdescription%>"
                 MenuGroupId="200"
                 UseShortId="true"
                 Sequence="200"
                 />
         <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="ID_Logout"
                 Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_logout%>"
                 Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_logoutdescription%>"
                 MenuGroupId="200"
                 Sequence="300"
                 UseShortId="true"
                 />
         <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="ID_SwitchView"
                 MenuGroupId="300"
                 Sequence="200"
                 UseShortId="true"
                 />
         <SharePoint:MenuItemTemplate runat="server" id="MSOMenu_RestoreDefaults"
                 Text="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_restorepagedefaults%>"
                 Description="<%$Resources:wss,personalactions_restorepagedefaultsdescription%>"
                 ClientOnClickNavigateUrl="javascript:MSOWebPartPage_RestorePageDefault()"
                 MenuGroupId="300"
                 Sequence="300"
                 UseShortId="true"
                 />
     </SharePoint:FeatureMenuTemplate>
    </CustomTemplate>
</SharePoint:PersonalActions>
<SharePoint:ApplicationPageLink runat="server" id="ExplicitLogin"
    ApplicationPageFileName="Authenticate.aspx" AppendCurrentPageUrl=true
    Text="<%$Resources:wss,login_pagetitle%>" style="display:none" Visible="false" />

So, you now have a file to deploy: “CustomWelcome.ascx”. And we know WHERE we want to deploy it to because of where we copied the original from (C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES)

Okay… NOW let’s create a solution package…

Sure thing. Open up STSDev. You’ll see something similar to the following screen:

Give our solution a name… hey how about “CustomWelcome”? Make sure “Empty Solution” is checked and click on “Create Solution”. You will see a message saying your solution was successfully created. Open up that newly created solution in Visual Studio.

You will see the following message when you open the solution:

Select “Load project normally” and click on “OK”.

Now look in your “Solution” Explorer:

And let’s look at that hated manifest.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--Manifest created STSDEV utility at 7/8/2010 11:31:52 AM-->
<Solution SolutionId="031CF8A6-36ED-4F74-B043-6299A9EE78D0" ResetWebServer="True" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/" />

STSDev automatically created the folder structure and the XML files you need. It will also MODIFY these XML files for you as needed. Isn’t that cool? So, all you have to do to finish creating your package is to create the folder structure in the project for where our “CustomWelcome.ascx” file needs to go and put that file in the correct folder. This is also VERY easy. The “RootFiles” folder is a mirror of the 12 hive directory. Pretend “RootFiles” is the same thing as “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12”. We know our file needs to be placed in “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\CONTROLTEMPLATES” so we need to replicate this structure in our Solution. This is done by adding folders. So, let’s add a folder to “RootFiles”. This is done by right clicking on “RootFiles” then “Add” then “New Folder”.

Name the folder “TEMPLATE”. Now add another folder by right clicking on “TEMPLATE” to create the folder “CONTROLTEMPLATES”. When you are done your structure will look like:

Now all you have to do is drag and drop your “CustomWelcome.ascx” file onto the “CONTROLTEMPLATES” directory. Just open up the directory it’s in in explorer and drag and drop it there. You can also right click on “CONTROLTEMPLATES” and select Add->Existing Item and browse to your file.

When you are done you will see your file located in the folder structure.

Now… the hard part. Creating the WSP file. Press F6.

Tada… your WSP file is now created.. don’t believe me? Open up the project in your file explorer and check

Don’t believe it will work? Well, deploy it on your Dev VM by changing the Build option to “DebugDeploy”

Now Press F6 again. The package will be built and deployed on your local VM. STSDev build script will even run the STSADM commands to deploy, redeploy, retract, etc.. for you. How’s that for a time saver? So, after the deploy is finished, go look in your local CONTROLTEMPLATES directory. The file’s there? isn’t it? Seriously, wasn’t that completely easy?

If you look at your Manifest.XML file again you see that STSDev automatically modified it for you, you didn’t have to do a thing!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--Manifest created STSDEV utility at 7/8/2010 11:29:41 AM-->
<Solution SolutionId="031CF8A6-36ED-4F74-B043-6299A9EE78D0" ResetWebServer="True" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
  <!--TEMPLATE files-->
  <TemplateFiles>
    <TemplateFile Location="CONTROLTEMPLATES\CustomWelcome.ascx" />
  </TemplateFiles>
</Solution>

You can add multiple files and locations in the same solution as well. Now all you have to do is take the WSP file to your other farms and deploy it using STSADM. The files go where they are supposed to and you can concentrate on other things, like getting back to Farmville.. I’ve got to harvest my strawberries.

Conclusion

When it comes down to it, there are hundreds of “Best Practices” when it comes to SharePoint. Most people cannot agree though on what is and isn’t a Best Practice in most cases and many times the answer is “it depends”. I think this is one “Best Practice” if looked at objectively everyone can agree on. When you take into account all the benefits of creating packages it’s totally worth the few extra clicks and deployment commands.

So, stop your whining.. start packaging… it just might save the planet.

So… What is a SharePoint Developer?

Mark Rackley — Sun, 23 May 2010 03:23:16 GMT

A few days ago Stacy Draper and I were chatting about what it means to be a SharePoint Developer. That actually turns about to be a conversation with lots of shades of grey. Stacy thought it would make a good blog post… well, I can’t promise this to be a GOOD blog post…

So, anyway, I decided to let off a little bomb this morning by posting the following tweet on Twitter:

@mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD?

Now, I knew this is a debate that has been going on since the first SharePoint Designer User put SharePoint Developer on their resume. There are probably several blogs out there on the subject, but with the wildfire that is jQuery and a few other new features out there I believe it is an important subject to tackle again. I got a lot of great feedback as well on Twitter. The entire twitter conversation is at the end of this blog posting. Thanks everyone for their opinions.

Who cares? Why does it matter? Can’t we all just get along?

Yes it matters… everything must be labeled and put in it’s proper place. Pigeon holing is the only way to go! Just kidding.. I’m not near that anal, but yes! It is important to be able to properly identify the skill set of those people on your team and correctly identify the role you are wanting to hire. Saying you are a “SharePoint Developer” is just too vague and just barely begins to answer the question.

Also, knowing who’s on your team and what they can do will ensure you give your clients the best people for the job.

A Developer writes code right? So, a Developer uses Visual Studio!

Whoa, hold on there Sparky. Even if I concede that to be a developer you have to write code then you still can’t say a SharePoint Developer has to use Visual Studio. So, you can spell C#, how well can you write XSLT? How’s your jQuery? Sorry bud, that’s code whether you like it or not. There are many ways to write code in SharePoint that have nothing to do with cracking open Visual Studio.

So, what are the different ways to develop in SharePoint then?

How many different ways can you “develop” in SharePoint?? A lot…

Out of the box features

In SharePoint you can create a site, create a custom list on that site, do basic calculations in a calculated column, set up alerts, and add all sorts of web parts to a page. Let’s face it.. that IS development!

javaScript/jQuery

Perhaps you’ve heard by now about this thing called jQuery? It’s all over the place and the answer to a lot of people’s prayers. However be careful, with great power comes great responsibility. Remember, javaScript is executed on the client side and if you abuse it your performance could be affected.

Also, Marc Anderson (@sympmarc) wrote a pretty awesome javaScript library called SPServices. This allows you to access SharePoint’s Web Services using jQuery. How freakin cool is that? With these tools at your disposal the number of things you CAN’T do without Visual Studio grows smaller and smaller. This is definitely development no matter what anyone else says and there is no Visual Studio involved.

SharePoint Designer

Ahhh.. The cause of and the answer to all of your SharePoint development problems. With SharePoint Designer you can use DataView Web Parts, develop (there’s that word again) your branding, and even connect to external datasources. There’s a lot you can do in SharePoint Designer. It’s got it’s shortcomings, but it is an invaluable tool in the SharePoint developers toolbox.

InfoPath

So, can InfoPath development really be considered SharePoint development? I would say yes. You can connect to SharePoint lists, populate fields in a SharePoint list, and even write code in InfoPath. Sounds like SharePoint development to me.

Visual Studio – Web Services/WCF

So, get this. You can write code for SharePoint and not have a clue what the 12 hive is, what “site actions” means, or know how to do ANYTHING in SharePoint? Poppycock! You say? SharePoint Web Services I say… With SharePoint Web Services you can totally interact with SharePoint without knowing anything about SharePoint. I don’t recommend it of course, but it’s possible. What can you write using SharePoint Web Services? How about a little application called SharePoint Designer?

Visual Studio – Object Model

And here we are finally: the SharePoint Object Model. When you hear “SharePoint Developer” most people think of someone opening Visual Studio and creating a custom web part, workflow, event receiver, etc.. etc.. but I hope that by now I have made the point that this is NOT the only form of SharePoint Development!

Again… Who cares? Just crack open Visual Studio for everything! Problem solved!

Let’s ponder for a moment, shall we? The business comes to you with a requirement that involves some pretty fancy business calculations, and a complicated view that they do NOT want to look like SharePoint. “No Problem” you proclaim you mighty SharePoint Developer. You go back to your cube, chuckle at the latest Dilbert comic, and crack open Visual Studio. Then you build your custom web part… fight with all the deployment, migration, and UAT that you must go through and proclaim victory two weeks later!!!! Well done my good sir/ma’am! Oh wait… it turns out Sally who is not a “developer” did the exact same thing with a Dataview web part and some jQuery and it’s been in production for two weeks? #CockinessFail

I know there are many ASP.NET developers out there that can create a custom control and wrap it to be a SharePoint Web Part. That does NOT mean they are SharePoint Developers though as far as I’m concerned and I personally would much rather have someone on my team that can manipulate the heck (yes, I said ‘heck’) out of SharePoint using Dataview Web Parts, jQuery, and a roll of duct tape.

Just because you know how to write code in Visual Studio does not mean you are a SharePoint Developer.

What’s the conclusion here? How do we define ‘it’ and what ‘it’ is called?

Fortunately, this is MY blog. I don’t have to give answers, I can stir the pot, laugh and leave you to ponder what it means! There is obviously no right or wrong answer here (unless you disagree with me,then you are flat out wrong). Anyway, there are many opinions. Here’s mine. If you put SharePoint Developer on your resume make sure to clearly specify HOW you develop in SharePoint and what tools you use.

If we must label these gurus of jQuery and SPD, how about “SharePoint Client Developer” or “SharePoint Front End Developer”? Just throwing out an idea. Whatever we call them, to say they are not developers is short-sighted, arrogant, and unfair. Of course, then we need to figure out what to call all those other SharePoint development types.

Twitter Conversation

@next_connect: RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? | I say no....

@mikegil: @mrackley re: yr Developer question: SPD expert <> SP Developer. Can be "sous-developer," though. #SharePoint #SPD

@WonderLaura: Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -- My opinion is that devs write code.

@exnav29: Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? => I think devs would use VS as well

@ssKevin: @WonderLaura @mrackley does that mean strictly vb and c# when it comes to #SharePoint ?

@jimmywim: @exnav29 @mrackley nah, I'd say they were a power user. Devs know their way around the 12 hive ;)

@sympmarc: RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -> Fighting words.

@sympmarc: @next_connect @mrackley Besides, we prefer to be called "hacks". ;+)

@next_connect: @sympmarc The important thing is that you don't have to develop code to solve problems and create solutions. @mrackley

@mrackley: @sympmarc @next_connect not tryin to pick fight.. just try and find consensus on definition

@usher: @mrackley I'd still argue that you have a DevLite title that's out there for the collaboration engineers (@sympmarc @next_connect)

@next_connect: @usher I agree. I've called it Light Dev/ Configuration before. @sympmarc @mrackley

@usher: @next_connect I like DevLite, low calorie but still same great taste :) @mrackley @sympmarc

@mrackley: @next_connect @usher @sympmarc I don't think there's any "lite" to someone who can bend jQuery and XSLT to their will.

@usher: @mrackley okay, so would you refer to someone that writes user controls and assemblies something different (@next_connect @sympmarc)

@usher: @mrackley when looking for a developer that can write .net code, it's a bit different than an XSLT/jQuery designer. @sympmarc @next_connect

@jimmywim: @mrackley @sympmarc @next_connect I reckon a "dev" does managed code and works in the 12 hive

@sympmarc: @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect We had a similar debate a few days ago @toddbleeker et al

@sympmarc: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @toddbleeker @stevenmfowler More abt my Middle Tier term, but still connected. Meet bus need.

@toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect I used "No Assembly Required" in the past. I also suggested "Supplimenting the SharePoint DOM"

@toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect Others suggested Information Worker Solutions/Enhancements

@toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler I also like "SharePoint Scripting Solutions". All the technologies are script.

@jimmywim: @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect I like the IW solutions one...

@toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler This is like the debate that never ends: it is definitely not called Middle Tier.

@jimmywim: @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler "Scripting" these days makes me think PowerShell...

@sympmarc: @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler If it forces a debate on h2 best solve bus probs, I'll keep sayin Middle Tier.

@usher: @sympmarc so we know what we're looking for, we just can't define a name? @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler

@sympmarc: @usher @sympmarc @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler The naming seems to matter more than the substance. :-(

@jimmywim: @sympmarc @usher @toddbleeker @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler work brkdn defines tasks, defines tools needed, can then b grp'd by user

@WonderLaura: @mrackley @toddbleeker @jimmywim @sympmarc @usher @next_connect Funny you're asking. @johnrossjr and I spent hours this week on the subject.

@stevenmfowler: RT @toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler it is definitely not called Middle Tier. < I'm with Todd