(From My SharePoint 2013 Ignite Notebook) Part 1    Think of SharePoint 2013 as a platform, which will help you understand this new paradigm shift.  Lots of developers do programming using C#, Python, Ruby, Java, PHP, NodeJS. The SharePoint 2013 App model is based on web standards: HTML 5, CSS, JS, OAuth 2.0 and OData. Today SharePoint enables most of the SharePoint API functions to be accessible remotely, with the remote interface being much easier to maintain and more secure.  This concept also opens doors for SharePoint Developers create Facebook kind of applications for SharePoint and Office.   Today’s Application Development Challenges   Till SharePoint 2010, solution deployment could only be done in either Sandbox or Farm Solutions,  

  • Sandbox Solution

  • Limited

  • Only allow to access sub set of server side APIs

  • Cannot call external hosted web services

  • Use client side object call hosted web services

  • Supported for Online and on premise environment

  • Farm Solution

    • Need big server touch
    • Not possible to deploy on SharePoint Online
    • IT Pro. Say Performance  issue due to developer code
    • Outages when deploy code
    • SharePoint Apps

  • Deploy file to \BIN directory or GAC folder

  • When error occur, affect the app pool which make cause service outage

  • Supported only for on premise environment

  • Easy to deploy apps.

  • Reduce the number of 99.99

  • One set of server is for lots of customer

  • Application no longer live in SharePoint

  • Code executed in client, cloud or on-prem

  • Permission via OAuth.

  • Service bus EndPoint via REST / CSOM

  • No Sever-Side SharePoint API for Apps

  • Supports HTML5, CSS, JS and railed development

What type application we can develop?

  • Contact form
  • Travel request form
  • Shared documents
  • Contact list
  • Room booking
  • Visitor information
  • Claims
  • Leave applications
  • HR related forms download
  • More input look at 40 SharePoint template to develop applications

Choice of Application type  

  • Provider Hosted Apps
  • Windows Azure Auto-Provisioned Apps
  • SharePoint Hosted Apps

Marketplace SharePoint and Office apps -  Microsoft is going to introduce a commercial public marketplace soon. Today Office has 75 M users,so the Office and SharePoint Apps concept sounds very promising. Besides the public marketplace there is also option for private corporate app catalog for enterprises. Downside of SharePoint Apps

  • The performance is depends on Network latency issues
  • InfoPath form not supported as SharePoint Apps
  • Timer jobs are not possible within an app
  • Deep changes to the user site are not possible with an app
  • Cannot have any server-side SharePoint code

If you have already started development on SharePoint, do share with us your experiences!