Microsoft Sharepoint Development - 10 Steps To Do It Effectively

By Author: ophelia alina
Total Articles: 5
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One of the specialties of an offshore software development company is its ability in web application development using Microsoft SharePoint. All of them employ developers who dedicatedly work in a team to develop applications as requested by the stakeholders. While many SharePoint developers find application development difficult there are many who use various techniques to simplify the process of Microsoft SharePoint development. Here are 10 steps which are generally used by developers to speed the process for SharePoint application development:

1) Use Exceptions: Professional coding in SharePoint is an art of using and omitting some of the features of the platform for effective Microsoft SharePoint development. Using standard exceptions as those found in .Net or tailoring them to suit your requirement is thus considered a good practice for application enhancement using SharePoint.

2) Third Party Code Review: Though some might not agree with this step, it is in fact the best practice to ensure that the code written is as per the standard practices. A SharePoint developer can ask a co-developer to go through ...
... the code and suggest changes if any. This works on the famous principle that we are less likely to find error in our own work and others are more interested in finding error in our work.

3) Stick to patterns: Predefined patterns are good for almost all different projects for Microsoft SharePoint development still there are many developers who waste time reinventing their own pattern. Patterns help SharePoint developers to make sure that the code written is secure, robust and efficient.

4) Capacity testing: This is the best way to test if the application developed using custom code performs good or not. It gives developer an idea of how the application will perform in real time production constraints.

5) Automated Unit Testing: Many would doubt the use of automated unit testing in Microsoft SharePoint development however it should be noted that a large community of developers are already using and benefitting from automated unit testing. It is advocated that unit tests should be used wherever possible.

6) Refactoring: One of the best practices, useful for Microsoft SharePoint development is using refactoring. First write the code to develop a functional application and then use refactoring to remove all the extras in the code and make it cleaner, neater and maintainable. It might need for time but the end result will be worth the time.

7) Instrumentation: Though SharePoint provides for ULS logs for logging in the errors it is not sufficient to just enter the errors once in a blue moon as the IT department does not always go through the ULS logs to check the errors, this makes it impossible to correct the errors before they become big. Instead of ULS logs error logs can be maintained in Windows Event Log, Developer Dashboard, ASP.Net Tracing, Conditional Compilation and the Conditional Attribute.

8) Tools: There is no doubt that tools facilitate coding and should be used for Microsoft SharePoint development. Some SharePoint development tools are free while some are paid, often free tools turn out to be better, and so it is always good to contact other developers to decide which tool should be used for Microsoft SharePoint development.

9) Use .Net Framework: To a large extent SharePoint is inspired from .Net and so using .Net framework can comparatively ease the process of Microsoft SharePoint development allowing developers to use features like reflection, tracing, conditional compilation, nullable types, serialization, anonymous types etc.

10) Give adequate time: Effective coding can never be done when you are short of time. Spend adequate time to write good code and ensure you work towards improving your skills in SharePoint coding. Allocate atleast 2 hours a week to brush up your skills and learn new techniques for Microsoft SharePoint development.

A well known offshore software development company Tatvasoft specializes in Microsoft SharePoint development using techniques which fasten the process.