Is a sharepoint developer technically "equipped" to do custom app dev and vise-versa? [closed]

Question

This may be an opinion based question, but it's something that I wanted to ask (even if it does end up getting closed or deleted).

I do custom app dev (asp.net/aspMVC) and have absolutely no knowledge about sharepoint and was wondering:

If you have a "rock solid" custom app dev, asp.net/aspMVC web developer can he jump into sharepoint development fairly easily? What about the other way around? Does a seasoned sharepoint developer have the "chops" to do custom app dev using asp.net/aspMVC?

By no means do I want to offend any sharepoint developers or any custom app dev developers. I'm merely trying to see how much knowledge you can take with you when going from one type of development to another.

Answer 1

I recently put a very strong .NET guy from my team through the SharePoint learning process and let me tell you, it’s no small task. The issue is not so much familiarity with the SharePoint object model or product architecture (he was quite familiar with the latter), it’s more about understanding the “SharePoint way” of doing things.

Let me expand a little; the main thing is the concept of working locally on a host system goes out the window so you need to work on either a VPC (which you may need to build from ground up) or a server which also has the appropriate development tools installed. Some people even run a Windows server product directly on their host machine but you’d want to pretty dedicated when this also involves running SQL Server and SharePoint on your PC.

The next thing is it’s not simply a matter of opening up a SharePoint site and writing code against it, it’s more a matter of building individual webparts and features which can then be deployed. This also involves some very obscure configuring of XML files which if done incorrectly, can have a very negative impact on the entire environment (i.e. things just stop working). Finally, the deployment process is completely different. There is no simple “publish” option like you’d have with a normal ASP.NET environment rather there is a convoluted process of deployment and activation.

SharePoint does a lot of things really well but when it comes to writing custom applications it has an uncanny knack of making things that are normally very simple extremely complex. You reach a lot of crossroads where it’s either the SharePoint way or the highway and if you’re not aware of these upfront you run a serious risk of the effort required blowing out significantly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great product, I’m just saying don’t approach it with the attitude of “it’s just .NET development” and expect things to go smoothly.

IMHO, this is a very large jump for a .NET developer and shouldn’t be approached unless you’re serious about moving into SharePoint development. I’m quite explicit in my environment now that unless someone has real world experience developing for SharePoint they should not be jumping in and “learning on the job”; the risk is just too high.

BTW, there is a good question titled What are your biggest complaints about Sharepoint which you should read.