Are SharePoint development tools Visual Studio and SharePoint Designer mutually exclusive?

Question

We have a multi-staged development environment, comprising Development, UAT and Production systems.

When developing solutions that will be migrated across all environments, we would like to be able to take advantage of all of the available development tools, including the SharePoint UI, SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio.

My question is, are the tools mutually exclusive? Is it possible to create some components like Lists and Views using the UI and Designer, and then use visual Studio to create more complex features like web parts? If so is there a specific process that you need to follow to make sure all of the tools play with each other for your solution?

Answer 1

In my experience... if it's possible to do in the UI, do it there. If it's not possible to do in the UI, but it can be done in Designer, do it there. If it's not possible in either the UI or Designer, then and only then, should it be done in Visual Studio.

If so is there a specific process that you need to follow to make sure all of the tools play with each other for your solution?

this is a important, but not easy to answer. For instance, I developed a custom web part that stored info in a list. At any point, a site owner could modify or delete the list from the UI and my web part would fail... to this day that's the way it is. It's a classic content management system conundrum, allow users to do their job while prohibiting them from breaking stuff. good luck!