Microsoft: Update Your Documentation in Your SDKs

I recently downloaded the Sharepoint 2007 SDK from Microsoft's web site. This article is available as part of the version 1.2 SDK that was recently released for Sharepoint 2007. This article includes code samples that do not work, and references an IDE, Visual Studio .NET, that is not used with SDK. If you read the community comments at the bottom of the article, they describe about how the article is "outdated". It looks like the examples were written for Sharepoint 2.0, and never got updated to 3.0.

Currently with the WSS 3.0 SDK, you do not have have to add all of the references at the top of the article. In Visual Studio 2005 with the 3.0 SDK, it creates the references to Sharepoint automatically, and it will automatically install the web part on the Sharepoint server if it is on the same machine with Visual Studio.

Part of my job now as a consultant is too advise my clients on how to leverage certain Microsoft development technologies. Good documentation and books on Sharepoint are few and far between. Many of the books on Sharepoint 2007 were rushed to press while it was still in beta, and content of the books reflect that they are referring to the betas.

At the very least, Microsoft should keep their online documentation up to date.