An article I worked on has recently been published on MSDN. The article, Team-Based Development in SharePoint 2010, shows how to implement a team-environment custom development of SharePoint 2010 projects by using Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010. Also learn what to consider before starting SharePoint development projects.
Microsoft SharePoint 2010, which includes Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, offers a comprehensive story for collaboration, content management, business intelligence, social networking, and electronic forms. In addition to the robust built-in functionality, SharePoint 2010 is also very extensible, and provides developers with many options to create custom solutions that meet specific business needs.
SharePoint 2010 is a Microsoft ASP.NET application, and many of the team-based development techniques and approaches used in ASP.NET projects apply to SharePoint 2010 projects. However, there are also significant differences. This article discusses the differences that exist in SharePoint 2010 projects compared to ASP.NET projects, specifically in the areas around team-based development. In addition, this article addresses things to consider in developing SharePoint solutions as they are moved between environments, such as development, build, integration, test, quality assurance, staging, and ultimately into production.
Teams creating SharePoint 2010 customizations will have different approaches to developing projects, depending on the size and background of the development team, and the size and subject matter of the scope of the project. Because there are multiple factors at play in setting up and implementing a team-based development approach for SharePoint 2010 projects, this article does not attempt to describe a one-size-fits-all process. Instead, developers and development managers should use what is addressed in this article to create a process and guidelines that fit the size of their specific development team and background and the type of the project.