SharePoint is only good for what it was developed for: Collaboration. I think where SharePoint begins to suck is when management is sold on the fact that EVERYTHING needs to go into SharePoint. Then developers start thinking that SharePoint sucks...because if applications are expected to be developed in SharePoint, well, it sucks.
Build a web app using IIS, VS2005 and SQL Server 2005, just like you normally would. When you are finished, simply put the application dll(s) in the bin directory of the SharePoint website (c:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\80\bin). Now to get the .aspx pages into SharePoint. SharePoint does not store the web pages as physical files. All the web pages in a SharePoint site are stored in the SQL Server backend. Lame. I don't think there could be a benefit to this that can possibly outweigh the lameness. So how do I get the .aspx files into SharePoint? Here's the easiest way: Open up SharePoint Designer. Open the site you wish to host the application in and drag the .aspx files into the site via SharePoint Designer. This will import the pages into the SharePoint database. Open SharePoint, go to the site, and hey, it works! Here is a good article that explains it a bit better than I just did (option 4 is what you need to look at). In the end, if you want to develop an application and host it in SharePoint, do it this way!!
http://blogs.msdn.com/cjohnson/archive/2006/09/05/application-development-on-moss-2007-amp-wss-v3.aspx |