For those who wish to expand into SharePoint enhancements (remember that you can enhance the site without any dev tools using the browser features) I found this simple blog entry (Know your options for developing with SharePoint 2007 - Program - .Net - Builder AU ) and it is quite nice. Read the whole blog, but here is a snippet.
The editions of SharePoint
One of the more confusing aspects of SharePoint is that there are two versions available: Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. Developers follow the same basic steps to get started with SharePoint regardless of the version. Here's an overview of both offerings.
|> WSS: This is the so-called "free" version, as there are no additional licensing issues. It is included with the Windows Server 2003 operating system (version 2.0). The current 3.0 version is available via download. It provides core document management, collaboration, and search functions, which include blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, e-mail support, and Office 2003/2007 integration to name a few. WSS will suffice for small organisations or departments.
|> MOSS: The server product is built on top of WSS. Along with the core WSS functions, it adds enterprise search and people search capabilities, along with an unlimited document repository, personal sites, additional Web parts, workflow, content syndication, and much more. MOSS targets organisations that will store more than 500,000 documents, which are usually larger enterprise customers.
SharePoint utilises SQL Server on the backend. You may choose to use an existing SQL Server installation or the limited version (think MSDE) included with it.
Development tools
There is more than one way to get involved with SharePoint development. The most basic approach involves a FrontPage-esque tool and evolves to full-blown development with Visual Studio.
Before exploring external tools, SharePoint provides browser-based editing tools that allow you to manipulate and customise SharePoint applications via an easy-to-use interface that is much more powerful than in SharePoint 2003.
ttfn
David
Posted
Mon, Aug 6 2007 9:50 PM
by
David Overton