Jeff's Blog

As SharePoint 2010 looms in to view, it's not a bad idea to look back at the incredible distance we have come in the SharePoint world. I'm not talking about the platform, I'm talking about us.

 

For example, back in 2003 almost no one had a staging server -- development was frequently done directly in production in a site collection named /sites/test or something similar. Today, three-stage development is standard practice: development > staging > production. Some shops add a fourth or fifth level to the deployment process.

 

Branding is something we are now generally able to do thanks to Heather Solomon (http://www.heathersolomon.com/content/sp07cssreference.htm) and (I think) Ian Morrish who indexed public MOSS sites here: http://www.wssdemo.com/Pages/websites.aspx 

 

Governance has also evolved and continues to do so. I have my own beliefs on this, but those are best delivered in person. Ask me to lunch, I'll share. If you're not in DC, I'll defer to Joel (http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Presentations/Whitepapers/Sample_Governance_Plan_AM102310201033.doc).

 

Virtuallzation is another area that we've kind of figured out. Only a year ago, doing a production MOSS deployment on a virtual platform was bleeding edge. Now, some of us consider it a best practice.

 

Finally, the tools and add-ons are much better now. I know that seems like a platform issue, but from my perspective it is more of an evolution of developers: we are more experienced, better at our jobs, and there are more of us now.

 

All that said, I think we are still evolving in the areas of workflow, user education, and applying social networking for business goals. It's nice to have room to grow!