As discussed in Chapter 1, Introducing SharePoint Online for Developers, packaging and deploying of SharePoint solutions has always been slightly too complex and error-prone.

With SharePoint 2007, 2010, and 2013, full-trust based solutions were the standard of the time for packaging customization. These files would hold a single XML-based manifesto that would say what is in the package, and it was left up to SharePoint to figure out just how to deploy assets and artifacts correctly.

In situations where SharePoint failed the deployment, it was left up to the developer, or even worse, the IT professional performing the deployment to clean up whatever was left behind. This produced all types of utilities, tools, and best practices on deployment order, and how to update your existing packages in production in order not to break anything else.

With SharePoint Framework, we're finally moving beyond this problematic approach, as each SharePoint Framework...