SharePoint Framework Five "W"s & 1 "H" Answered - Overview

This post introduces our post series "SharePoint Framework Five Ws Answered". In this series, Andrew Connell answers the classic "five-W" questions developers have for the SharePoint Framework: what, why, when, who, where and how.

by Andrew Connell

Last updated September 21, 2024

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 then, 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:

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?

Author

Andrew Connell
Microsoft MVP, Full-Stack Developer & Chief Course Artisan - Voitanos LLC.

Andrew Connell is a full stack developer who focuses on Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365. He’s a 22-year recipient of Microsoft’s MVP award and has helped thousands of developers through the various courses he’s authored & taught. Whether it’s an introduction to the entire ecosystem, or a deep dive into a specific software, his resources, tools, and support help web developers become experts in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, so they can become irreplaceable in their organization.