I started web development in 1997 with some basic HTML pages and Style Sheets. Shortly after I installed my first Apache Web Server, PHP and MySql on my PC.
Soon after I fell in love with the web and web technologies in general. It was natural for me that I got my first job as a web developer for a huge company in my home town. The following year we built intranet systems and web application for this company. All built on this web stack and developed mostly locally.

The SharePoint years

In 2005 I started to work with SharePoint worked as a consultant for SharePoint Infrastructure and Development. Sometimes I wished that I would be able to work with my beloved web development stack again. Being able to work locally and don’t need to connect to a Server.
It must have been around 2008 when I changed back to. At this time the technology changes a bit. Now I have been using an Internet Information Server, still PHP and MySql. In addition to SharePoint I started to develop WordPress too.
In case of SharePoint front end development I injected the local stored JavaScript and CSS directly into SharePoint. Mostly because I was really annoyed by that fact to write something in Visual Studio, deploy it to the server, change something and do it all over again.

The benefits of modern web stack development and NodeJS

One of the problems in the past was that every time you started a new project you had to change your local infrastructure. Configure a new IIS web site or store your new project files in different folder.
A huge benefit of NodeJS is that you have one folder per project and you can start a web server directly from this folder. You can have individual configurations for each new project.
The default configuration will be provided through Yeoman and more specific Yeoman generators. You can use this tool like you created a project in your Visual Studio.
You can use it and event don’t need to know how to develop NodeJS.
Yeoman just uses NodeJs as a platform for the infrastructure. A modern web development stack.
To help you get started. Vesa Juvonen, Waldek Mastykarz and I recorded a web cast.
After that you will see that it is not rocket science and mostly straight forward.

 

Finally – Yo Office and the new Sharepoint Framework

The first Yeoman generator released by Microsoft was ‘Yo Office’. This generator enables you to write Office add-ins just by using JavaScript.
The next Yeoman generator will be the new and the shiny SharePoint Framework generator. While the current implementation is more than vague, I’m sure it will be another great tool to write web parts and modify the branding for Sharepoint.
From my personal experience over the last two years using Yeoman. Its pretty exciting technology to use and to improve your development workflow.