Andrew Connells new MOSS WCM book is really good!

I've been doing MOSS Web Content Management work since MOSS 2007 was released. There have been the highs and lows, and frankly it's been a bit of a voyage of discovery. Let's face it the documentation was somewhat lacking, and some areas were in desperate need of patches!

I got my hands on Andrew Connells latest book recently 'Sharepoint 2007 Web Content Management Development' and I have to say I'm impressed. He really has pulled together a lot of essential guidance.

One welcome common thread is the use of Features to deploy customizations. He may tell you how to create a list, a content type, a site column, but always there's a snippet of xml there to help you deploy the item in a Feature.

After the in depth introductions to WCM concepts and building blocks of MOSS WCM he moves onto other important meaty topics such as Accessibility, Search, Authentication and Authorization, Offline Content Authoring and many more.

The only section I found a little light was the commentary on Variations. However that was made up for by complimentary guidance on Multilingual  aware MOSS.

Finally I'd mention the chapter on Performance Tips, Tricks, and Traps which will have something for everyone. SOme of the gotchas I knew through bitter experience, but this book has provided me a heads up on others I haven't experienced that I can now sidestep.

This book would be fine for beginning MOSS WCM, but frankly he goes into enough depth that experienced MOSS WCM professionals will learn new stuff too that makes their life considerably easier.

Well done Andrew, this is a really nice piece of work.