Microsoft released the SharePoint Framework in early 2017 after initially introducing it to the world in concept at their May 2016 virtual The Future of SharePoint event. Since that time, I’ve written numerous blog posts and articles, spoken at multiple conferences, talked to countless developers and published my Mastering the SharePoint Framework on-demand video training course on SharePoint Framework.
One set of questions I seem to keep going back to is explaining what the SharePoint Framework is and why did Microsoft create it. You know when something is staring you in the face for so long, but only after all this time you finally have this idea that’s so obvious, it’s almost embarrassing? Well, that’s me right now.
Admittedly this is way overdue, but I finally realized that there isn’t a definitive body of work that answers the most basic questions about the SharePoint Framework. You know the questions… the ones they refer to as the 5Ws, or sometimes the 5W1Hs? It’s the classic “what, why, when, who, where, and how”. I’ve decided to answer these in my words.
Starting today and over the next two weeks, I’m publishing a series of 5 posts answering the most basic questions about the SharePoint Framework. This series, SharePoint Framework Five “W"s & One “H” answered, starts today with the most common question: what. The questions I’ll tackle in these posts are as follows:
- What is the SharePoint Framework?
- Why did Microsoft create the SharePoint Framework?
- When did Microsoft introduce (and release) the SharePoint Framework?
- Who can use the SharePoint Framework?
- Where is the SharePoint Framework available?
- How does the SharePoint Framework work?
My goal in these posts is to help explain the SharePoint Framework to those who are confused about some of the aspects of it. I’ll admit that I also have a selfish reason to publish these as well; too often I find myself repeating myself answering one of these questions. Now, I can just share a link and not have to type it up again!
So with that, let’s kick this series off with the first post: What is the SharePoint Framework?