Good book for learning Sharepoint development

Question

What would you recommend? I know C# and ASP.NET well, but I haven't touched Sharepoint before.

Answer 1

Inside Windows Sharepoint Services by Ted Pattison is an absolute must read for any sharepoint developer.

Answer 2

I liked Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development Unleashed for its treatment of Sharepoint's object model.

Answer 3

Developer's Guide to the Windows SharePoint Services by Todd Bleeker is a really great starting point.

Answer 4

I agree with Charles, that Ted's Inside WSS 3 is an absolute must for every SPDev. But the book I generally give to my new .net developers when they are getting into SharePoint for the first time is Scot Hiller's Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005.

Here's the author's quote about the intended audience:

"..the audience for this book is an intermediate professional developer who was just assigned the project of bringing SharePoint 2007 into the organization."

Answer 5

Charles Graham has it right here. Inside WSS 3 by Ted Pattison should be the first book anyone picks up if they're interested in SharePoint development. Every person on our SharePoint team has their own copy of this book on their bookshelf. No shared library copy for this puppy! It is written for someone exactly like you too (knows .net but has never worked with SharePoint).

WSS is the base framework for all that is SharePoint. If you ever plan on moving on to development using other SharePoint products (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Standard/Enterprise/Internet), you will need to know the information contained in this book.

Answer 6

I must second the voices for Inside Windows SharePoint Services and especially Todd's Developer's Guide to Windows SharePoint Services. Both are excellent all-round books that will get you started without knowing anything SharePoint specific.

One thing to be aware, and a second reason why these two books are especially good, is that SharePoint spans many different topics. Once you start to know SharePoint you may want to specialize in a particular field. One thing is the MOSS/WSS choice, but you still have a lot of sub choices, such as Web Content Management, Business Intelligence, Workflow, Design, etc. Each of these sub areas will require a lot of study and most have excellent books available. Ask again if you need tips for specific areas.

To do a bit of shameless self-promotion, I am also writing a SharePoint book, Building the SharePoint User Experience. The topics will go extremely deep into how the user experience is built and how user experience elements work. It is not a user interface book, it is pure, hardcore development, focused on understanding how the user experiences SharePoint.

Answer 7

This question has been already discussed here with the same suggestions WSS/MOSS Book on stackoverflow.

Answer 8

Definitely Inside WSS 3.0 by Ted Pattison