

Ask HN: How scalable is Microsoft SharePoint as a Web application framework? - buu700

Also, what would be the pros and cons of building and launching a minimum viable product on SharePoint? Specifically, would a skilled hacker likely see any speedup in going from concept to launch over, say, Ruby on Rails?<p>Has anyone ever used SharePoint Online as a production PaaS solution? (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/sharepoint-online.aspx)<p>Please don't hurt me. I swear I'm just curious...
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alexduggleby
I was a SharePoint consultant/developer for quite some time and still do
occasional projects.

The current version of SharePoint (2010) is a strong product if you stay with
out-of-the-box features. It has all the major features you find in the
collaboration-saas-app de jour just geared towards big business and therefore
less "sexy". The core is still built around document management (versioning,
corporate meta data/tagging and workflows being the major features) and
integrates well into a Microsoft infrastructure environment. There are
different levels of search, but if used correctly it can become the corporate
search center and index pretty much anything you throw at it (Microsfot bought
an external SharePoint search product a couple of years ago).

I agree with struppi the wiki (both the old and new versions) don't get close
to functionality & usability of modern wikis. But I disagree on page and site
creation. The default templates cover most use cases. The page editing
functionality is browser-based WYSIWYG that any Office user can figure out
without involving the IT department (the big selling point). Sure you're not
going to win design awards doing that, but you get the job done.

A lot of Microsoft Access functionality is replicated via lists, linked lists
and views but without the concurrency nightmare.

Customizing the SharePoint design always fails from my point of view (apart
from basic colors and a logo change). There are great examples but they
require a lot of investment and who needs it for intranet sites. SharePoint
_can_ be licensed for Internet use, but I have yet to meet someone who has
done that - it's really an intranet product.

Development on SharePoint is a PITA. Workflow development is usually the
starting point and has improved over the years but getting to version 1 is an
uphill battle. Sadly it doesn't end there, the real problem is updating to the
next version. Without going too deep into SharePoint terminology let's just
say there is not "ALTER TABLE" you can run on SharePoint lists which makes
changing data schemas difficult.

Regarding search: it does work out-of-the-box (even in the free foundation
version) with one exception. To be able to search PDFs additional steps are
required which is indeed a PITA to setup everytime. I'm assuming this has
patent reasons. Search in SharePoint was one of my favorite features if you
use it to the fullest extent.

Having said all that (and mostly because SharePoint always seems to be the big
mystery product) I am NOT building my MVPs on SharePoint. I have built a
couple of products on it but due to aforementioned update difficulties on the
one hand and fairly easy integration of vanilla ASP.NET web applications into
SharePoint environments I mostly choose that route for my products.

To sum up: SharePoint has improved greatly since 2003 and is a good
collaboration platform for big (albeit conservative) businesses but cannot be
recommended as development platform (for any kind of non trivial project).
Since it is based on ASP.NET using that and integrating with SharePoint data
via the API libraries is my suggested way to go.

PS: I agree with eletrichead that the market for SharePoint products is large
and SharePoint knowledge is a value resource at the moment.

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struppi
I would not do it. The last time I saw/used Sharepoint (I had a 2-day
sharepoint user training ~9 months ago) I was really unimpressed.

Don't get me wrong, managing documents with Sharepoint works. Somewhat. But
all the web stuff seemed really half assed to me. The Wiki doesn't work,
building pages and sites is PITA and search does not work out of the box (and
as far as I can remember you need an expensive add on to make it really work).

I think they also told us that developing for/with sharepoint can be quite
tricky and upgrades to newer sharepoint versions can cause problems - But I am
not sure If I remeber that correctly.

Even if everything above worked find, I don't think it is a good idea to
create a MVP with a tool like Sharepoint, which has it's own (quite
inflexible) way of doing things and forces you into certain processes. You
should really be able to iterate fast and create exactly what you want, and
not be constrained by the structure, process and templates of a (huge, hairy)
tool when building a MVP.

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electrichead
Sharepoint has its uses. I think that unless you're committed to deploying on
SP, you are probably better off not using it for a prototype. It takes a lot
of configuration just to start out on it, as by default it is hard wired to
look like SP. Swapping out the master page to a more useful one and creating a
new style sheet with resets takes a lot of work. If you can find someone that
has already done it then it might be viable, but IMO unless you are
specifically targeting current users of SP (a surprisingly large number of
Fortune 500), it is not worth it. The flip side to this is that there are very
few products for SP and you would have a large base for each product unit
sold. I am a SP developer, so I can help out if you need it.

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dwd
Unless you need to leverage SharePoint functionality then I would suggest
anything else would be faster and less painful.

In the .Net environment an MVC3 application is the closest you will get to
RoR, and if you are looking for a lot of pre-built functionality the Orchard
Project will give you a good foundation.

www.orchardproject.net

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stephengillie
All Sharepoint Online users have to be authenticated, and using one logon for
more than one user isn't allowed. You might have more luck with the free
Sharepoint Foundation server.

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rman666
Run away, fast.

