I can't comment on best practices, but I can at least share some of my
experience on the project we're working on right now.

> 2. What would be an ideal development environment/platform for
> developing  applications over MOSS 2007? our team consists of 3
> developers, two test engineers, one analyst and one project manager. we
> are developing a business intelligent application and will need to write
> our own web parts, custom .ASPX pages, custom database design (to hold
> business data).

We built our own custom VPC image to use for development and push our
tested code up to a build server for user acceptance testing.


> 3. Should we use VSS for configuration management, or VSTS?

Our company already had VSS installed, so we've been using that
without problem so far.


> 4. What tool/method should we use to deploy the developement version to
> test, staging and finally to production environment?

Currently, we're just manually deploying the compiled assemblies, so
I'd be interested in hearing more about this as well.


> 5.someone told me that you can't use VS.NET 2005 to connect to a MOSS
> 2007 website, modify existing pages, create custom .ASPX pages etc. The
> only available tool for this purpose is sharepoint designer. is this
> true? also, what exactly can we do using VS.NET 2005 IDE if we are to
> develop an enterprise level web application over MOSS 2007, other than
> developing web parts?

To some extent, this is true. Download the SharePoint Extensions for
Visual Studio 2005, and you can do other cool stuff like creating
custom list definitions, content types, and site definitions. If
you're planning on editing style sheets, master pages, or
page layouts, SharePoint Designer seems to be the easiest way to go
since it directly accesses the SharePoint content databases.

Here is my response/questions inline...



We built our own custom VPC image to use for development and push our
tested code up to a build server for user acceptance testing.



>>>[Akhlaq] Ok, great. It seems to be widely adopted topology of
development environment. Do you guys work on a single VS.NET solution at
a time so that you don't have to manage the changes on each developer's
machine individually? Also, which VS.NET solution "type" did you guys
use to start your project?


Our company already had VSS installed, so we've been using that
without problem so far.



>>>[Akhlaq]I suppose it means you guys are using a single solution added
to the VSS db, right?


Currently, we're just manually deploying the compiled assemblies, so
I'd be interested in hearing more about this as well.



>>>[Akhlaq]Ok, so how do you guys use your compiled assemblies in the
MOSS environment? Webparts? Custom .aspx pages? Sharepoint built-in
.aspx pages?


To some extent, this is true. Download the SharePoint Extensions for
Visual Studio 2005, and you can do other cool stuff like creating
custom list definitions, content types, and site definitions. Ifs,
you're planning on editing style sheets, master pages, or
page layouts, SharePoint Designer seems to be the easiest way to go
since it directly accesses the SharePoint content databases.



>>>[Akhlaq]Ok, we actually need to do everything with our sharepoint
site J so I am wondering how to do everything with just one tool. Can we
somehow use VS.NET for all development purposes even if it means a
little or more deployment overhead? We are looking to develop custom
.aspx pages, assemblies, webparts, stylesheets, masterpage, page layouts
etc.