Flame and Ye Shall Be Flamed in Return

I was all geared up to author a scathing respone to this ridiculous post but I was struggling with some way to write it without using the words ‘idiot’, ‘imbecile’ and ‘moron’ all in the same sentence.  Sometimes, I just can’t get beyond the urge to reach through my computer and slap the bejeezus out of some SharePoint-hating dolt.  Fortunately for me, Bil Simser, Tony Bierman, and Bob Mixon beat me to it and they managed to be much nicer than I would have been.

 

Wasn’t there another such bag of drivel floating around just a few weeks ago?  It seems there’s a new formula for obscure bloggers looking for a bump in their traffic – flame SharePoint and wait for the hits to come pouring in.  I suppose it’s a bit like the old days when Microsofties would post disparaging messages to Apple fanboy newsgroups just to get some fleeting BBS fame.  That’s all well and good – and didn’t someone say that any press is good press? – but is anything really being achieved by all this (mostly good natured) bantering back and forth?

 

Just in case the Anti-SharePointers missed it, we already know that SharePoint isn’t perfect, thank you very much.  We know the dev tools need work.  We know that it’s a big gnarly beast.  But we also know how much customers love it, how it’s streamlined their business processes and enabled collaboration like they’ve never had before.  We’ve seen the good it can do (and the bad) so we’ve got a pretty good handle on the positives and negatives without some ill-informed open-source code monkey posting a batch of rambling missives just to get attention. 

 

So here’s a tip to those who haven’t been hit by the clue train yet – SharePoint isn’t going away.  Think you’re comfy writing one-off Java or .NET apps for a nice wage?  Guess again, Gomer – your world is about to turn upside down.  SharePoint is going to gate-crash your party in an armored Humvee and start pulling your beloved JAR files and delicate CGI scripts out by the roots.  Why?  Because it’s a great product and customers are buying it in droves.  That includes the company you work for (or your clients) so get used to it.  And we haven’t even reached critical mass yet – MOSS 2007 is less than a year old.  Better check to make sure you’re strapped in tight with all your limbs inside the vehicle because this roller-coaster is still going up the first incline – just wait to see what happens when it goes down the other side.

 

Here’s a crazy idea – why not learn SharePoint and get on the ride with the rest of us?  It’s not that hard, really, and it’s actually a lot of fun.  Once you get over the horror – horror, I tell you! – of someone else having already thought of the grungy stuff that used to take up most of your time (you know, UI, navigation, security, data access, all that exciting stuff), you’ll start to enjoy writing killer features again.  Really.  And we’re actually quite an easy lot to get along with – heck, we’ll even help you learn it and not ask a penny in return (have you seen how many SharePoint blogs there are dispensing free advice on a daily basis?). 

 

Someone once said "If you can’t beat ’em, Join ’em".  Maybe they were talking about SharePoint, eh?