It really is the season of giving, especially for the SharePoint developers/users/fanboys (yes Marc, I am looking at you). Some of the presents that are under the tree are:
WSRP Toolkit for SharePoint: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sharepointteamblog/~3/485910608/announcing-the-wsrp-toolkit-for-sharepoint.aspx
The WSRP Toolkit for SharePoint provides sample code for producing WSRP conformant data from SharePoint lists and libraries. External portal platforms (e.g. BEA AquaLogic Portal, IBM WebSphere Portal, SAP NetWeaver Enterprise Portal etc.) can then render SharePoint data natively through their WSRP consumer portlets.
I am excited about this because it really does being more interop to SharePoint.
The SharePoint Guidance from the patterns & practices team: http://blogs.msdn.com/francischeung/archive/2008/12/18/shipped-sharepoint-guidance.aspx
- Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring, and packaging.
- Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter, such as when to use SharePoint lists or a database to store information.
- Implementation examples that are demonstrated in the Training Management application and in the QuickStarts.
- How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
- How to set up different environments including the development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
- How to manage the application life cycle through development, test, deployment, and upgrading.
- Team-based intranet application development.
I have underlined the one that most excites me, unit testing SharePoint!
SharePoint User Interface Extender: http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2008/12/19/announcing-the-codeplex-release-of-shuie-sharepoint-user-interface-extender.aspx
ShUIE is an addition to Microsoft SharePoint that allows a developer to inject JavaScript and CSS fragments depending on the context of the page being displayed. JavaScript and CSS injected can be optionally minified, and jQuery is included to increase functionality.
This will just make things like Slide.Show integration or jQuery integration so much easier!
SharePoint on the iPhone: http://blogs.msdn.com/ekraus/archive/2008/12/18/sharepoint-on-the-iphone.aspx
-Asynchronous – even with poor reception, the browsing experience should be “good”
-Available via iTunes App Store
-Advanced compression algorithm – faster downloads & browsing
-Uses SSL to connect
So all you buggers who went to CT for a holiday, us who remained now have something to keep us busy and give us an edge over you for next year.