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Web Stack Tools to Prepare You for the SharePoint Future_870x220

A key challenge for SharePoint developers is to anticipate the future of the framework and adopt the web stack and JavaScript tooling in a way that doesn’t just add extra workload, but can be used even today in current projects and setups.

One big, though still green, opportunity is hanging over the heads of SharePoint developers and there is a distinct possibility it does ripen in the next year. We are here to make sure that when (or, as some may suggest, if) it does, it will not fall on anybody’s head.

This opportunity is, of course, the SharePoint Framework, also known as SPFx. According to the the SharePoint Team, the SharePoint Framework is "an evolutionary step in SharePoint extensibility that delivers a new client-side rendering framework leveraging open source JavaScript technologies. The SharePoint Framework embraces the tools, frameworks and open source initiatives that developers rely on today, and it extends the scope of solutions that can be built on SharePoint, in the cloud and on-premises."

What’s in It for the SharePoint Developer

Many benefits await the SharePoint developer who ventures into client-side JavaScript development. Among others, it will enable you to extend your skillset—and your SharePoint site’s capabilities—faster and more efficiently. Plus, your site will be mobile-ready and responsive by design. You will learn skills that are useful even outside of SharePoint. Time will become your friend.

The Tricky Part

A key challenge then is to anticipate the future of SharePoint, in its SPFx aspect, and adopting the web stack and JavaScript tooling in a way that doesn’t just add extra workload but you can use even today in your current projects and setup.

In a recent whitepaper, “Preparing Your Toolbox for the SharePoint Framework with Angular, Webpack and Kendo UI,” authors John Liu, MVP Office Server and Services, and Bart Bouwhuis, SharePoint consultant, tackle this challenge. They present a set of technologies they believe align well with the direction in the open web stack and work really well together. To see an outline of their proposition, follow this SlideShare:

In the words of the whitepaper authors, “you might not be cooking in the SharePoint Dev Kitchen, but that really doesn’t stop you from watching and learning how to use the same tools to cook at home.”


nora-georgieva
About the Author

Nora Georgieva

Nora Georgieva is the Product Marketing Manager for KendoReact. She’s passionate about clear and effective communication - one of her goals is to make the marketing person that professional whom developers can count on for getting the right information at the right time to meet their challenges. In her free time, she does improv theater, goes to live music gigs and explores.

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