Ed Brill

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1. 1  Rock http://www.lotusgeek.com | 2/4/2006 3:20:10 PM

   I was thinking something very similar, and this post prompted me to express my own thoughts about this passion. You can read my ramblings on passion here: { Link }

   Good stuff, Ed (and Damien).

1. 2  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 2/4/2006 5:17:50 PM

   { Link }

1. 3  Roberto Boccadoro  | 2/4/2006 5:32:55 PM

   Ed, you know me, this is exactly the way I feel. I read Rocky's post and I have to agree with him; this is one of the best period for us, I feel great to be a Loti.

   RoB

1. 4  Simon Bounds  | 2/4/2006 9:08:57 PM

   "is knowing that I'll spend my day with other people who care, who enjoy, who relish, who grok"

   Give me more relish and especially more grok. Maybe grok is the secret ingredient.

   Seriously, the years using and evangelising Lotus technologies, as a Loti and now as a customer, has proven to me that there is nothing like the community that is our "Family" I have never known an industry/group of people who you can immediately see passion in what they are trying to achieve as well as a passion for fun, partying, mischief , hard work, fun & partying, in that order.

   Simon

1. 5  Mick Moignard www.dominopower.com | 2/5/2006 5:22:34 AM

   Can't agree more. I've felt this way since August 1991, and first meeting with Notes 2.0.

   Mick Moignard

1. 6  Axel  | 2/5/2006 7:00:33 AM

   As I work in both Notes and Java I tend to compare.

   You can see this "emotional" factor of the notes community from different ancles.

   From a technical standpoint I've personally think to have learnt a lot from the more aggressive approach inside java community. Good example was Rod Johnsons EJB/struts and anything holy critic which started around 2001. This and others fostered a culture where every stone is turned around and discussed. And this can be helpfull also for people who are more in the application programmer/business consultant roles.

   I am actually convinced that open technological discussions about the weaker points of the notes platform (not going to mention, to not spoil the party) would be a good thing.

   Sometimes those discussions tend to degenerate in FUD, but not all.

   Before all, I consider the endemic attitude of "platform allways brought down by others" as non acceptable for me. I read all critics against notes with great interest. At least others are interested in the platform. And I am actively defending notes before customers for the record.

   Or as its been said on a recent interview with a well respected extremist in javaland:

   ({ Link }

   Joseph Ottinger: Through your blog, you've become known for blasting various tools and APIs without regard for people's feelings, the tools' popularity, or anything else. What purpose are you trying to serve through this?

   Hani Suleiman: Education, entertainment, education, and education. While I've been blamed for what some refer to as the 'new negativity in javaland', I think this is a far healthier ecosystem than the one I felt I lived in before I started the bileblog; that of endless pats on the back for everyone, for everything. The goal is to let Java developers realise that there is no shame in pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. Of course, I'm not saying that everyone should be like this, and I certainly do agree that it's easier to knock down than build up. That doesn't take away anything from the value of knocking down though. In many ways, I feel that I express sentiments that many developers feel, but had trouble articulating (perhaps not the colourful language, but that's just my version of syntactic sugar).

1. 7  david racicot  | 2/5/2006 3:21:21 PM

   My reasons for sticky up for and with Notes are completely logical. a) it's the most versatile software ever written and b) it's the best software for business collaboration, workflow and web development ever invented.

1. 8  Scott Gentzen http://www.scottandmargo.net | 2/5/2006 4:56:20 PM

   I get the alone-ness frequently where I am. I'm the only Domino guy in my org and when I get excited about some part of the IBM or Lotus product family (new or new to me) I'm usually met with rolled eyes and shaking heads. "Don't mind him, he's the Domino guy.

   I've been doing system administration and applications management long enough that it's not just useless enthusiasm...I can visualize and explain why I think the technology would be useful to the organization rather than just say that something's just 'cool'...and I still get the rolled eyes again as they go back to the Sharepoint migration discussion and the like.

   That was one of the cooler things about Lotusphere to me...that there was a real live community out there. I was surrounded by 6000 other people that could geek out on this stuff just as much as I can and some even more! I learned a lot in the sessions that I attended, but I also learned a lot from the other attendees with what they're doing and not doing in their orgs. It's nice to see that Notes really isn't dead out there, even if it's kinda dying where I am.

1. 9  Axel  | 2/6/2006 1:45:32 AM

   @7: I believe that "best" is allways based on a given and often very specific context.

   We are lacking a clear definition of the meaning of "versatile software" or "business collaboration", "workflow" and "web development". So those are exactly the kind of bold statements, I can't follow.

   If Domino is the best in those broad categories, why does php, Websphere, JBoss, Geronimo, .NET, Ruby on Rails exist?

   Domino certainly is a usefull tool in a lot of contexts if used by guys who are smart and experienced enough.

   But I think, that to claim its "the best" in such broad categories is simply something, which I think neither Domino, nor the software industry nor mankind needs.

   Could we please care a bit more about drawing a line between rational reasoning and fervent believe?

1. 10  Henrik Hansen http://www.i-seven.com | 2/6/2006 5:25:26 AM

   Great to hear from people sharing the same enthusiasm about Notes. However, the problem is that there is a perception on the "outside", that Lotus Notes is Yesterdays technology. We need to stand together and tell this story outside of this great community. In some ways, the success of Notes is the worlds best kept secret - nobody outside of our community realizes how great a product it is.

   An example: If you're attending some kind of social gathering and someone asks you what kind of job you're doing and you tell them that you work with Lotus Notes, the most common reply is: "Oh, I didn't realize someone was still using that product - I thought it was dead!!!"

   Credits have to go to Micro$oft Marketing/FUD - they really have done a good job. But we need to fight back, tell the good stories and share the success of Lotus Notes with people on the outside of this community.

   @9: Is it the best product around? Well, depends on what you are comparing it to. If we compare it to Sharepoint, which is the typical misunderstanding in the MS community, then it's definitely the best of the 2 :-)

1. 11  Axel http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/javahelpgui/ | 2/6/2006 7:03:26 AM

   Well. This "humorous" declaring death game of the software industry was allways heavily inflated anyway. I remember Notes people declaring rdbms old stuff and dead back in 1999.

   In newer times we find Ruby on Rails guys declaring Java and php dead (2 dead bodies killed with just one silver bullet). Or Geronimo/JBoss guys declaring Websphere dead. J2EE stack will be taken over by "better" openSource. Whatever this "better" means. Or Java guys declared c/c++ dead.

   I am currently mainly involved on a project on JBoss Portal Server and I am still saying that Domino is a good product for certain contexts (as is JBoss Portal Server or whatever). IBM shows a clear ongoing commitment to Lotus products (Domino 7, Sametime 7.5).

   If you have problems with being declared dead you might start dabbling with Sametime 7.5 or some such which is Eclipse based and you are Java/Eclipse developer AND Domino developer. From a rational standpoint your life is simply to precious for being spoiled by the teenage declaration of dead game of the software industry.

   I know that there are arrogant Java developers out there, but they are mostly not the best.

   Its all about business value anyway, which does not mean that serious learning effort in a 2nd platform doesn't pay off in the long run. But thats true for all flavours of IT workers, not only for Domino people.

   In my free-time (where one might think that one does more "innovative" stuff) I am fighting with SOA for a successfull Domino open Source project.

   kind regards

   Axel

1. 12  david racicot  | 2/6/2006 9:10:25 AM

   @9.

   "If Domino is the best in those broad categories, why does php, Websphere, JBoss, Geronimo, .NET, Ruby on Rails exist?" ...because they don't get Notes.

   People who get Notes know what I mean. And I base my opinion on facts (not fervent believe). None of the technologies you mention can do alone what Notes can. Therefore, it makes sence for THE BUSINESS to use Notes. Best ROI, best ease of install, best for support manpower requirements, best for longevity and backward compatibility, best for small business, best email. I could go on and on and on and on and, ...

   Are you one of these ?

   "These people who like to squash enthusiasm I like to call "cynical @ssholes". These are people with no real passion of their own, and it annoys them to no end to see others who do."

1. 13  Axel  | 2/6/2006 10:10:22 AM

   Dear David,

   some might have more talent for "consistent statements" about realities of a highly diferentiated market and others might to prefer help out noobs on local forums or preparing info for Lotus quality support about an issue in XSD_DateTime I stumbled across in my os project (it might be me).

   I hope there is space in this community for people who think that Domino is "the best" and others like me who don't know or care about "what's best".

   peace

   Axel

1. 14  Luke Kolin http://www.deltava.org/ | 2/6/2006 11:01:57 AM

   @12: Wow. Kool-Aid anyone?

   Cheers!

   Luke

1. 15  Turtle http://www.weightlessdog.com/msxsux.html | 2/6/2006 11:42:59 AM

   I can't think of anyone who insists that Notes/Domino can (or even should) compete head-to-head with specialized tools that solve only one part of the web application service and collaboration puzzle. To do so falls into the same dumb pit Microsoft falls into every time they try to compare Outlook/Exchange with ND... they act like all Notes/Domino can do is messaging, and since all Outlook/Exchange really CAN do is messaging, they argue that it must be "better."

   Of course, it's not, but they keep trying.

   The Notes/Domino platform has had an incredible long run as a secure, adaptable, highly-programmable platform for development of collaborative client/server or web client applications, one unequalled by any other platform there is or has ever been. Can it do EVERYTHING? Nope. But it has an enormous strength in that with fairly little farting around, it can work with other tools (like those mentioned in @9) to fill in the fairly small gaps it has.

   Not one of the tools in @9 can say the same.

1. 16  david racicot  | 2/6/2006 11:51:41 AM

   I only have one pair of boxing gloves AND THEY'RE YELLOW!

1. 17  Axel  | 2/6/2006 1:29:21 PM

   ... and I've allways had a preference for less belicious sports like basketball or table tennis...

1. 18  Newbs http://www.henrynewberry.com | 2/6/2006 2:33:12 PM

   "Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience".

   Perhaps this is the challenge in ANY group that thinks, believes, or knows that they "get it" and therefore they have passion about "it". There are always folks that do not "get it" or get a "different/opposite it" that cannot be dissuaded because they have the same (or greater) degree of passion about "it".

   What I find cool(est) about the Notes Domino community that "get it" is that we are compelled to share it because it makes us feel good to share and collaborate without regard to compensation or personal improvement. Perhaps some of the nay sayers get a lesser buzz when they share, and are much more stimulated by growing self importance and riches.

   That may be the only way to explain their behavior to someone like me who simply does not get their version of "it".

   Newbs

1. 19  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 2/6/2006 3:19:30 PM

   I love Notes in many respects -- it's what got me back into the world of computers, and it's what got me into development. But I do wince when people claim it's the solution for everytying.

   That said, the atmosphere at LS this year was fantastic, and we should shout out more about the stuff Notes / Domino does well, no question.

   One of my recent projects is a Websphere JSP-based front-end (my bit), using a Domino application in the back-end (someone else's bit). It works really nicely, and the two technologies complement each other: Domino actually does quite a lot of the nice stuff (workflow, editing documents, export agent, etc. etc.)

1. 20  Nathan T. Freeman  | 2/7/2006 2:48:09 AM

   "I remember Notes people declaring rdbms old stuff and dead back in 1999."

   What idiot were you talking to when you heard that? I'm about as adamant a Notes enthusiast as you'll encounter, and I'm a huge fan of object databases, but even I would never put forth something like that.

   Axel, it's always a mystery what people you talk to from the Notes community. What other major commercial platform with Notes' user population adopts open standards so quickly and thoroughly? And yet you always speak of Java and web services as if they were separate technologies? Do you even work with Domino anymore? Have you even seen a Domino server in the last 5 years?

1. 21  Rock http://www.lotusgeek.com | 2/7/2006 8:11:45 AM

   Obviously anyone on the extremes (e.g. "Notes can do EVERYTHING!" and "Notes SUCKS!") are both wrong - the truth is somewhere in the middle. I am as big a Notes evangelist as anyone, but even I accept the reality that it is not the best tool for all jobs. The problem is that it is actually a "good" tool for many, many jobs, and for whatever reason management is often quick to discount Notes/Domino as a viable solution. So, I believe that a) Notes/Domino is not good for everything and b) it is good for more things than it is used for in many organizations - and that "gap" between potential and reality is rich with opportunity.

   --Rock

1. 22  Axel  | 2/7/2006 8:49:33 AM

   Nathan,

   An ex-boss of me said that. Nevertheless I liked to work with her. But even nice people like her sometimes say stupid things. Even if they know Domino. From what I've heard she's quite successfull.

   I think I am connecting with more than 10 Domino servers on average each week. On my 2 lapptops and 2 computers alone, there are 7 or more installed Domino servers for dev testing.

   And yes. I know you can use Java and Webservices with Domino. I am currently working in a project which provides a JSR 168 Portlet frontend for one of the most successfull Domino apps here in Germany.

   In my spare freetime, I have initiated a Webservices project on sourceforge, which is about a webservices frontend for the project with the most downloads of your openNtf.org and I am in close contact with Ulrich Krause in this issue.

   I 've encountered interesting issues like supporting Domino docLocking in SOA environments, Dominos rich security model, configuration data in a SOA context, which are to be explored in the project. So if anyone has interest.

   https://sourceforge.net/projects/javahelpgui

   And no. Not anyone who expresses some critical statement is your enemy. And could you guys please agree on the obvious: The right tool depends on the job to be done and this is a highly diferentiated market.

1. 23  Luke Kolin http://www.deltava.org/ | 2/7/2006 12:24:25 PM

   @22: Excellent last paragraph. While I think IBM marketing and the Notes/Domino need to take an agressive stance regarding the presentation of their product, there's been so much criticism for so long that I detect a bunker mentality that dumps all criticism of Notes/Domino in the same file.

   Notes and Domino are great products. They do great things. But there's very few things that they are UNIQUELY positioned to do, and that's getting smaller every year. It's important to keep that in mind.

   In 2005, I spent nine months porting a multi-database Domino site getting tens of thousands of hits a day to mySQL and Tomcat, after having done Domino work since it was an add-on task to Notes 4.1. Having done more workflow apps than I care to remember, I can tell you that porting a Notes workflow to a Java/RDBMS platform is pretty straightforward; there's nothing inherent to Notes that makes it uniquely placed to handle these tasks. Open standards? Web Services? Sure. Replication? You better believe it

   In terms of open standards and support, the new platform is better than what we had before. Upgrade the server software? It can be done with approximately 30 SECONDS of downtime, just enough to shut down the first, old instance and start up the second, newer one. (The advantage is that I update a symlink and I can roll back with 30 seconds of downtime!) I can upgrade a JVM with the same amount of time, instead of waiting for IBM to send me a new one about two years after it comes out.

   The real advantage that I have is that my web site uses the same application software as the web sites for the company I work for - which is one of the Top 15 web sites on the planet. I have 3 million rows in my database and think I'm hot stuff; 3 million for them is a day's work. But think about that - I can get the same technology for a hobbyist web site as one of the largest web sites in the world! I get scalability, reliability, standards, replication, security - all that good stuff, and I pay the same as one of the largest web sites in the world. NOTHING.

   (That being said, these folks still use Exchange for their e-mail. Go figure. [sigh])

   The only cost I had over Domino was that I good amount of the security and HTML rendering stuff I had to write myself. That cost me 2 months or so, but in retrospect is a small price to pay for exact control of my rendered HTML.

   As a distributed Win32 client/sever application, there's probably nothing that can beat Notes. But as a Web or intranet application development platform, it's being left behind. As a source of employment in my area, it's pretty much moribund. For e-mail? Sure.

   Yes, Domino's moved forward in the past few years. But at the same time, the application development marketplace has dramatically changed since 2001 as well. Microsoft is NOT your primary adversary in the appdev space. The competetive challenge is going to be the companies that start kicking all commercial software out the door when they realize that the feature benefits are getting smaller and smaller, and the license fees and paperwork are not.

   Cheers!

1. 24  Arnold  | 2/7/2006 12:36:58 PM

   Maybe IBM should give away a utilty server for free. For personal use of course. You simply can't run a domino based application/website on a personal site. Like a blog or something, because it is way to expensive. Also using a hostedsite is to expensive. You can use a free server on developernet but you can't even fit a blog template on that one. So...if you want people to learn and use domino/notes make sure there can get there hands on the software for free. Like MS...

1. 25  alan dalziel  | 2/7/2006 1:58:47 PM

   @2 - Bruce - It would appear posting your link has lead to some blog spam . . . .see the comments on the post :-)

1. 26  Axel  | 2/7/2006 2:42:05 PM

   @Luke: I agree in a lot of points (and probably experiences) with you. There is just 1 point I completly disagree:

   If for your project javanization does work, does not mean that Domino web development is "outdated" for anybody.

   For a lot of teams and projects it is a usefull approach. If someone does know 6 webframeworks, spring, hibernate, etc. does not necesarily make him a more productive web developer as Jake forgot_lastname from codestore firing up his fellow Domino Designer.

   And there is an ongoing effort inside IBM for Notes. Some of that stuff is interesting.

   This very attitude to declare Domino as outdated in this or that area creates all this aggression and bragging.

   For a lot of organizations Domino does make sense.

   I've seen "brilliant" Java architects burning virtually 100s of billions of Euro by creating useless and non-working inhouse frameworks.

   I've seen incredible productive Java projects.

   I have seen Domino teams creating blunder.

   And Domino teams creating good stuff.

   It really depends on the people inside the organization and the project.

   Lets be more shy with those generalizations & simplifications. That's all I am saying.

   This teenage platform-is-dead-bashing game might have been great fun, when anybody who was able to start some sort of IDE found easily 70.000 Euro job. But please not after this years.

1. 27  Ben Poole http://www.benpoole.com | 2/7/2006 2:52:22 PM

   @24. Sorry, but that's rubbish. I host my Domino-based website, together with two other applications (my wiki and the LS2006 wiki) for VERY reasonable rates. Whilst I agree there aren't too many Domino hosting outfits out there, they do exist, and theyr enot expensive.

1. 28  david racicot  | 2/7/2006 7:02:56 PM

   @27. I agree. It isn't expensive (Express), and the hosting company I use is very reasonable. @Others, staying current with Notes and promoting its outstanding benefits and value to executives is still one of the best things you can do for the businesses you belong to. You'll save them money in the end.

1. 29  Kudla mkudla.blogspot.com | 2/7/2006 10:18:58 PM

   Ed - sorry I missed it. I was really looking forward to attending LS 2006, what with the statute of limitations having expired and all, since my last visit in '99.

   I was looking forward to meeting you and sharing ideas. I miss the passion and energy that was so evident in Orlando in the years I attended.

   One of the highlights of my professional career to this day is sitting in the audience while Mussie gave his amazing demo of R4 to more interruptions for applause than the State of the Union Address and to a thunderous standing O at the end. It was overwhelming.

   Mussie is a genius, and he made the product look about 10 times better and more polished than it was at the time, but to have the fruits of our labor greeted with such enthusiasm and yeah, passion, is something I will never forget.

   Oh well... maybe next year...