Professional Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development Using Microsoft Silverlight 2
Authors: Steve Fox, Paul Stubbs
A few days back I had the pleasure of interviewing Steve Fox, author of "Professional Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development Using Microsoft Silverlight 2" . This interview gives an overview of the book and what all will be covered in it.
Tell us a little about yourself?
I am a Sr. Technical Evangelist with Microsoft. I’ve worked in the IT industry for 15 years, 10 of which has been spent here at Microsoft. My main area is Office and SharePoint development, but I’ve also spent time in the areas of search, natural language and developer tools. I enjoy writing, reading, movies, and of course the occasional geek-out with new technology.
What does the book focus on?
We’re at the beginning of a convergence of two major technologies, Silverlight and SharePoint, and there is not much out there in the way of showing developers how to integrate the two. Thus, this book focuses on integrating Silverlight applications with SharePoint. The book provides a ramp-up approach, from easy to more difficult, and provides walkthrough-style chapters covering what we thought were the major integration areas.
What audience is this book meant to address?
Developers who have an intermediate understanding of SharePoint and Silverlight and want to learn how to enhance SharePoint with Silverlight. The audience should also be familiar with .NET.
What topics from the book do you think a SharePoint developer would find interesting?
Hopefully all of them. Seriously, I think the developer will be most interested in the different types of integrations that are possible. Silverlight is a powerful technology, and when applied to SharePoint it can really take SharePoint to the next level. There are a number of things, such as embedding rich Internet applications in web parts to custom field types to custom navigation, that should really appeal to the developer.
Do the examples in the book cover Expression Blend and Visual Studio? Which programming language do these examples use? C#?
Where appropriate, we cover some Expression Blend; however, the book is less about design and more for the developer. We primarily use VS 2008 (with VSeWSS 1.2) as our development toolset. We do show examples of Expression and SharePoint Designer as well though. The book has sample code that is expressed in both VB and C#, and we’ve shipped some sample source code along with the book for most chapters.
How familiar does one need to be with SharePoint to read this book?
I would say you’d want to be at least a little familiar with SharePoint. SharePoint is a very big product that cuts across a few areas. We’ve tried to deal with some of the common artifacts within SharePoint, such as the web part, field type, navigation, and the like.
In your opinion what are the best practices in consuming SharePoint data in Silverlight Controls? Does the book cover them?
We do cover some of this, yes. For the most part you’re going to be dealing with services when consuming data within SharePoint from a Silverlight control. So, we walk the developer through a couple of scenarios where they are consuming custom data within SharePoint and then using that data within the Silverlight application.
Does the book explain how to create web parts, Field controls, navigation controls, etc using Silverlight in the form of examples?
Yes, it does.
Would you li
ke to share the topics that are covered in the book?
Sure. There are eight chapters in the book, which runs just over 300 pages. Each chapter was written in a practical way, so we walk you through how to do each of the integrations we discuss. That said, the eight chapters cover the following:
1. An introduction to Silverlight
2. Building your first SharePoint and Silverlight integration
3. Creating a custom field type using Silverlight
4. Branding your SharePoint site using Silverlight
5. Creating custom web parts using Silverlight
6. Advanced web part topics
7. Data connectivity to SharePoint in Silverlight
8. Overview of an end-to-end SharePoint and Silverlight application
Given the fact that there’s not too much out there today on this subject, I think this book will get developers excited and started on integrating SharePoint and Silverlight. Hopefully, it’s also stimulate some ideas for further integrations.
Does the book explain how to deploy these Silverlight web parts, controls and the best possible approaches to develop and deploy these solutions?
Yes, we cover some deployment as well. There will be different deployment scenarios depending on the infrastructure/architecture, but we talk about common ways of deploying the applications.
Thank you Steve, for your time. I think this book would really help us understand how we could use Silverlight in SharePoint to enhance the user experience. Looking forward to the release.
