I just wrote a little cheat sheet called"9 New Things in SharePoint 2013 Preview." And I realized after I wrote it that even though I'm an observer of the SharePoint world, rather than a mucker-about in it, looking over what's new in
SharePoint 2013
Preview did prompt a range of reactions.
Well, basically two: hope and anxiety. With maybe some envy and some self-satisfaction thrown in.
Let's account for the latter two first. They're not pretty.
As a content manager, I find the improved SharePoint 2013 Preview web content management features worth a look. Someone did some actual thinking about what a content manager might want. And yes, I feel some envy in comparing the new features to those in the tool I currently use.
As someone who has observed the Windows world for seven years, I do feel some self satisfaction around Windows PowerShell's rise in importance, in SharePoint and in other Microsoft products. Did we not tell you, either here at SharePoint Pro or over there at Windows IT Pro, that you'd be increasingly called upon to use PowerShell in the future?
The hope and anxiety part:
Hope: That SharePoint 2013 Preview will make your life easier. Reality adjustment: Maybe it will be so complex that people will specialize more than they do already and you'll be able to focus on one, small, more manageable area. One can dream, you know.
Anxiety: The Business Connectivity Services improvements. Overwhelming. Ditto for the business intelligence improvements. It's going to take time to sort those out.
I'd like to close with some words from Jeff Teper, Microsoft Corporate Vice President for SharePoint, writing about SharePoint 2013 Preview
at the SharePoint Team blog. After going on about the newer-richer-more-powerful-easier-sexy stuff, he says:
"We designed the new SharePoint UI to be clean, simple and fast and work great out-of-box. We encourage you not to modify it…"
"We encourage you to review the new features and guidance to reduce the amount of custom work you need to do. …we encourage you to validate your design early in your development cycle and with particular focus on peak usage performance testing for how your customizations impact HTTP and SQL Server roundtrips."
I don't know exactly why those words are comforting to me. (They sound a little fatherly, actually.) But they aren't to others.
Some see those words, and others of Teper's, as a direct hit to developers.
I hope that's not what Teper's intent was.
