Ed Brill

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1. 1  Roger Hintz  | 9/20/2006 1:46:53 PM

   Ed,

   Does this indicate the possibility of using the Domino Designer on non-windohs Operating Systems?

1. 2  Bill Brown  | 9/20/2006 1:59:48 PM

   Follow it up with Admin on Eclipse, and we can all relegate windoze to the scrap bin of history...

1. 3  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/20/2006 2:12:36 PM

   My understanding from talking to Maureen at Lotusphere is Designer will still be Windows only for the Hannover release. At some point in the future it will be cross-platform, but most of the underlying code is still in Windows libraries.

1. 4  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 9/20/2006 4:50:05 PM

   @3 Charles, what Maureen is showing is not a Hannover feature I have been told (and you can read that on her site and other places) ... this is post Hannover. Also, I think the words to use in your comment are "...At some point in the future it MAY be cross-platform" :)

1. 5  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/20/2006 10:46:26 PM

   I knew that the Eclipse version of Designer was slated for post-Hannover, I just didn't make that clear from my comments. I could swear I saw/heard something I took as a commitment to making it cross-platform but I can't find a reference right now.

   I did finally track down the post on Chris Reckling's blog that discusses this issue in more detail: { Link } . I get confused trying to keep track of the half-dozen blogs that these threads crawl through sometimes. :P

1. 6  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/21/2006 8:36:25 AM

   ...programs I admire most. For those who don't know her, you should know that she's one of the key reasons there still IS a designer client and a Notes product after all these years. On top of all that, she's a really neat, kind, good hearted person.

1. 7  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 9/21/2006 10:39:24 AM

   @5 ... Chris states it correctly, 'the request is duelly noted' ... that is not a sign of any committment. :D

1. 8  Mac Guidera http://heep://www.macguidera.net | 9/21/2006 10:59:46 AM

   @Andrew, I could not agree more!

1. 9  Todd Carpenter  | 9/21/2006 3:30:26 PM

   I didn't realize Maureen had a blog. I have made it to all her sessions at Lotusphere over the past decade as she exudes enthusiasm in her sessions, not unlike Mr. Brill. Keep up the good work, as Andrew mentioned we are all counting on you.

1. 10  Maureen Leland http://mvgirl.blogspot.com | 9/21/2006 10:21:50 PM

   Thanks so much for the kind thoughts - I'm very honored (and overwhelmed!)

1. 11  Bernard Devlin  | 9/22/2006 6:17:03 AM

   @6

   "she's one of the key reasons there still IS a designer client and a Notes product after all these years"

   Andrew, are you serious? What does this say for IBM's commitment to Notes and Domino as anything other than a legacy email system?

   Ed, would you care to comment on Andrew's claim? I don't wish to take any credit away from Maureen, but I'm just flabberghasted that enhancements to Notes/Designer client can be attributed mainly to the work of one person.

   Is this really true? What's the story behind this?

1. 12  Maureen Leland http://mvgirl.blogspot.com | 9/22/2006 8:22:59 AM

   Certainly the Designer client is built by a team - and the converged Designer itself, too!! I love to code, for sure, but that's just way more than any one person could possibly do. It would be frightening if only one person were working on this.

   My view is that the Designer client itself is the reason for the continuing success of Notes. Through Designer, it is *more* than an email client, but rather an application platform for collaboration.

1. 13  Scott Wichall  | 9/22/2006 8:36:20 AM

   <rant mode>

   Does this mean that Domino Designer will become any less crap as an application development platform?

   There are so many things missing compared to other development tools it's laughable. For example, the ability to search a database design for a particular text string. The most basic requirement but you have to buy a tool to do this.

   This is not meant to denigrate the ui development, its just that designer is, really, really poor as a development tool.

   <rant mode/>

   Looks good in eclipse tho!

1. 14  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net/ | 9/22/2006 8:46:19 AM

   @13 DDSearch { Link } should do what you want, and is free. Take a look at it, and many of the other tools I have listed here { Link }

1. 15  mark hughes  | 9/22/2006 8:55:10 AM

   @13 Have you ever checked into Design Synopsis in the designer client? You can create a synopsis and then search through it.

1. 16  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/22/2006 9:32:53 AM

   @14 - I didn't know this even existed. This goes back to my previous comment about IBM expecting customers to piece together information from multiple sources. By the way, this utility doesn't work with R7 unless you hack the Registry to make it think you have ND6 installed. Even though it seems to work, I'm a little uncomfortable with installing an unsupported tool that requires Registry hacks.

1. 17  Scott Wichall  | 9/22/2006 10:03:31 AM

   @14 & @16 - Yeah, I have previously used DDsearch and it was a very handy tool. But as Charles said, you need to hack the registry, and even then I couldn't get it to work so that scuppered me.

   @15 - design synopsis is good if you want to support your documentation. That is all it is good for- I want to be able to do global find and replace on text strings for example.

   Where is the class viewer for lotusscript code? Err, not there unless you download the lovely free class viewer from Teamstudio.

   My point is why no attention has been focussed on the development tools - there have been hardly any changes except a few handy ui tweaks since R5. This I consider to be unacceptable when you look at what other vendors have done. Yes the API has been extended thoughtfully and well, but the tools just aren't up to the job in 2006!

   Use Visual Studio 2003/2005 by comparison and they are a complete league ahead.

   Use eclipse with the domino java plugin - again a leap ahead of Domino Designer.

   So to sum up:

   Why is there no built in source code style integration to make it easier for large development teams?

   Why is there no class viewer like the Teamstudio free tool?

   Why is there no design element search/replace tool to allow global search and replace built in?

   Why does the designer run in the same process thread as the notes client?

   Why are there no add-in tools for web development - ie HTML/CSS tools? Lets face it, a lot of Notes development is for the web now.

   Why is the debugger so poor?

   Why is there no tool to view design element dependancies - eg form/subform relationships, or subforms knowing which parent forms own them, all in a nice tree view.

   There are plenty of other moans that can be levelled, but thats enough to chew on for now.

   It strikes me that no attention has been paid to the needs of the domino developer over the last few releases.....

   Thanks for listening!

1. 18  Chris Crowley  | 9/22/2006 10:50:44 AM

   @17 - I agree with you completely

1. 19  David Raciot  | 9/22/2006 11:39:00 AM

   You can build Web Applications in Notes?

1. 20  Bernard Devlin  | 9/22/2006 1:06:46 PM

   @17,

   Wow...thank you for that rant. Seriously. I thought I was alone in feeling that there had been so little attention to Designer since R5.

   I also use an a cross-platform development tool (Win32, OS X, Linux) produced by a small Scottish company with probably no more than 20 members of staff. Yet they are able to add major new features to the language and the IDE every few months.

   Designer does seem to have been in mothballs for the past 5 years or so. The comments @6 finally seemed to be an explanation for this.

1. 21  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/22/2006 1:58:11 PM

   @20 - You are most definitely not alone.

1. 22  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/22/2006 5:02:54 PM

   @17/20 -- I feel like there isn't much I can say that is going to alter your perceptions. First, it's hardly been a one-woman show, as Maureen commented @12. Andrew's comment clearly says "one of"... there's no one person that has somehow swam against a tide or been the last to turn the lights out. Are there always more things that can be/could have been done? Yes, I'll ack that. That's been true in the client and server, too.

   In part, the resources on app dev for Domino have been spread out in other places. The the JSP tag library for WebSphere, the Domino application portlets for WebSphere Portal, the NSFDB2 work to open up Domino apps, things like that. I sit in that Q&A at Lotusphere every year and hear the requests and complaints, so I know that Designer itself needs more. But it's not like the app platform has been ignored, as is characterized here.

   Oh and as for one specific in 17, a huge amount of research work went into trying to multi-thread Designer. It was just impossible to do based on the architecture of the Notes client platform today. So it's not like the team wasn't listening, it just couldn't make that one happen. I could probably respond to some of those other points, but part of the benefit of having an ecosystem where third parties can build some of this stuff is third parties build some of this stuff.

1. 23  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/22/2006 5:24:09 PM

   @17/20 et. al.

   <rant>

   I suppose if IBM were willing to make changes and improvements without regard to backward compatibility you could have everything you want.

   Would you like to:

   a) Know that no matter what version you upgrade from and what version you upgrade to, that your data and functionality will continue to work?

   or

   b) Have to be forever stuck on a version, where any change requires massive reworking.

   Many things are possible if you don't have to (or don't bother to) worry about a hundred million people breaking applications.

   Tried upgrading from vs 6 to vs.net? How about from vs.net 2003 to vs.net 2005? -- and those are just development platforms, not run time environments. For that, consider that your vs.net upgrade must also include an upgrade to your sharepoint portal AND your exchange server at the same time. If you're running in that stack, how much of your infrastructure can remain unchanged?

   Running a Domino & Notes based environment is comperable to running Exchange, Outlook, Sharepoint, IIS, SQL Server, and vs.net.

   Upgrading from Domino & Notes version 5 (is that 5 years old now?) to version 7.0.2 can be done in a few hours plus workstation software install time if need be (though version 5 workstations would work fine if you just upgraded the servers and moved users a few at a time). All your apps still work. Care to give me a cost & time for doing the microsoft stack?

   If you're willing to dump existing functionality and start over every couple of years, it's easy to put hot features in with each release.

   Grow up and look at the business of enterprise software. I.T. isn't an end to itself. I.T. is a cost center, a necessary cost center in order for the business to sell more of whatever it makes (shirts, cars, airplanes, etc). Lotus Domino & Notes let business focus on the core of the business not huge upgrades every two years that completely re-create the whole environment.

   </Rant>

1. 24  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/22/2006 6:09:07 PM

   It looks like every time you are on a roll, you forget your CPU at home. ;-)

   How does a Lotusscript class browser, a decent debugger or search&replace break compatibility?

1. 25  Maureen Leland http://mvgirl.blogspot.com | 9/22/2006 6:49:02 PM

   many of the things that have been listed as current Designer shortcomings (class browser, available css editors, debugger, etc.) are actually the motivation points for putting Domino Designer in Eclipse - where we can address these more easily and/or more consistently.

1. 26  Bernard Devlin  | 9/22/2006 7:03:44 PM

   @23 Andrew, the small-team, cross-platform IDE I was talking about is able to open & modify applications that were written 20 years aga (and which at that time were Mac-only), so if anything they are providing even better backwards compatibility than Notes. I freely admit that that application development platform is not as complicated as Notes (it is not client-server, doesn't deal with replication, has no security framework), but still... as Volker @24 points out, and Scott @17, I think that in the last 5 years we should have expected more from IBM in terms of enhancements to the Notes IDE. Up until 3 years ago, that IDE was maintained by a single individual!

   It's great if in the post-Eclipse Designer we get these kinds of enhancements, but it still shows how IBM has allowed Notes to languish as a development platform in the last 5 years.

1. 27  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/22/2006 8:01:20 PM

   @24, @26 -- Of course there is no excuse for the way IBM treated the Domino/Notes community over the course of about 5 years. There's no question it has taken nearly two years since to really catch back up. I'm sure you'll find that nobody in the community made more noise about that as it was happening than I did.

   Nonetheless, with the biggest set of pure Notes advantages to come along in years, all I hear is complaint. IBM commits to a full parity Notes client for Mac & Linux - complaint that it's not ready yet. New designer in Eclipse, complaint about the old one because it's not ready fast enough.

   In the mean time, fighting for the product even when IBM executives where clearly doing everything possible that was wrong to do with respect to Notes, where people like Maureen who frankly accomplished more with less than anyone would have predicted.

   Oh, and all that while, with all the criminally stupid neglect the product got within IBM it was STILL the most stable, the most secure, and the cheapest to maintain solution available.

   Why does a full debugger or search and replace break existing functionality? Because the way things are stored and managed make it difficult to do those things the right way without doing things that could cause problems. It's been the work that's happened to get the thing working within Eclipse that has opened new UI avenues and code models to make possible the kinds of things we've all wanted forever.

   Do you really think the professional programmers on Maureen's team don't know how valuable a good IDE is to work in? Do you suppose they've held off just for the hell of it?

1. 28  Bernard Devlin  | 9/23/2006 5:39:40 AM

   @27 Andrew, you might well know about the importance of Maureen in driving developments in Designer/Notes, but would you care to elaborate? Why is Maureen such a star? That was what I asked for back @11.(I know that Maureen has stepped into this thread to ensure that we realise that it is the team that is important).

   I don't believe that anyone here is trying to belittle Maureen or the enhancements coming in the new Designer. If she is the key reason for Notes/Designer moving forward, tell us why - I'm sure we are all too happy to cheer her and rally round her.

   I'm committed to Notes and Domino, having _stopped_ using Websphere 4 years ago. There are plenty of really good alternatives to Websphere and DB2 (commercial and open source). There are _NO_ alternatives to Notes/Domino. If it wasn't for our commitment to Notes, we wouldn't still be hanging around blogs like this - we'd have moved on. We want IBM to recognize the asset they bought when they acquired Lotus and to capitalize on that asset, nut just treat it as an email system.

   "Do you suppose they've held off just for the hell of it?"

   No, I think Designer has languished because of a lack of commitment (= resources = money) to enhancing Notes. I would have thought (for example) that when the formula engine was re-written for R6 that that would have been the time to introduce formula debugging. Will Designer in Eclipse support formula debugging? We all know the story about how the formula engine was some kind of poorly-documented mess before Damien's re-write (and we assume that is now well-documented and well-understood). But unless I'm mistaken, R7 still has no formula debugger.

   Since you are happy to belittle people by telling them 'to grow up', why don't you show your maturity. Explain to us the technical reasons why the features people have been crying out for could not have been added based on purely technical reasons.

1. 29  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/23/2006 8:13:33 AM

   @28 While I am sure you're not trying to be offensive, as the tone and words of your posting rattle around in my brain this morning, I'm finding it out of line. I tried to address some of your points in @22, Maureen chimed in @25.

   "We want IBM to recognize the asset they bought when they acquired Lotus and to capitalize on that asset". You do realize that action took place eleven years ago, right? I think IBM's done pretty well for the investment -- there were 2 million Notes users in 1995.

   You seem flat-out determined to prove some conspiracy theory here. I'm getting tired of it.

1. 30  Bernard Devlin  | 9/23/2006 11:08:34 AM

   @29 Of course I'm not trying to be offensive. The only thing I think you could find offensive is the term 'grow up', which was a quotation from an earlier post that you did not consider offensive. Furthermore, I'm not the one who said that IBM demonstrated 'criminally stupid neglect' - a coment that you also did not deem sufficiently offensive to comment on. Please let me know in what way my post is more offensive than the one from which I'm quoting.

   @17 Scott pointed out that there were major inadequacies in the Designer IDE, and @22 you hightlighted developments that are all _outside_ of the IDE (JSP tags, portlets, DB2 backend), and in fact have nothing to do with enhancing Notes/Domino per se. The DB2 backend could be seen as an enhancement, but it could equally be seen as deprecating NSF as storage. In fact, all the enhancements you mentioned @22 could be seen as ways of leveraging people away from developing in Notes.

   All I've asked is for technical explanations as to why these desirable Designer enhancements were not feasible without having an eclipse-based IDE, and what this new IDE would be able to provide e.g. a formula debugger. I can't think of another programming environment that doesn't have a debugger, except shell scripts (and even REXX had an interactive trace command).

   I don't know what you mean about conspiracy theory. Do you mean my past demonstrations that Lotus Notes is not being sold by ibm.com as an application development environment? I never said it was a conspiracy - I demonstrated it in considerable detail. Or are you referring to my _questions_ in this thread as to why Maureen is considered such a star? I asked those questions because I genuinely don't know. I'm still puzzled by remarks by Andrew e.g. @27 where he says "people like Maureen [...] frankly accomplished more with less than anyone would have predicted." You're the one who decided to blog about Maureen and these enhancements, and Andrew added comments such as that. I just asked what is the back story to this.

   So, I'm perplexed by your latest remarks. If you're going to allege that I'm promoting a conspiracy theory, at least spell out what it is you're accusing me of. Quite frankly, it is insulting of you, and I'm surprised by it.

   FYI, I'm getting tired of askinq questions here that simply don't get answered. I'm starting to think that your blog is really about generating marketing buzz, rather than a platform for two-way communication. If that's so, fair enough, it's your blog. I can quite easily and quite happily stop contributing here.

1. 31  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/23/2006 12:00:00 PM

   @30 -- Why where these things not workable without an eclipse ide? That's not what I said. I said the work to get things to run in the Eclipse IDE led to the other things becomming possible. Money, time, and priority are all key on these.

   Possible has always been there. The desire to do them right or not at all has to be key as well. I could invoke a certain word that would send Ed into paroxisms of gut wrenching pain to illustrate my point, but I suspect I've just given enough of a hint that no more need be said.

   Why was Maureen's (and her team's) work so critical? Did you have a stable product that kept up with market demand sufficient to prevent mass loss of user base at a time when key people within IBM had nothing good to say about it?

   Maureen's team has kept a 20 year old product viable, stable, and agile regardless of funding and attention during what has to have been the most ugly 5 year period in its history from a funding standpoint. Rather than jumping right on the bandwagon of projects sexier within the company, she and her team kept things going in a good way while the rest of the company caught on to "the right way" (I give Ambuj Goyal a lot of credit for managing the process of finding a way for Notes/Domino to fit with IBM strategy again).

   So, now there's funding, attention, and project team focus again, and Maureen's team is out producing all those things you've been begging for.

   The work with Eclipse was/is the bridge to bring the Notes client into the fold of IBM planning, and the success at making that integration work is what has opened the door for innovation again.

   My opinions, of course, but you asked.

1. 32  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/23/2006 12:34:05 PM

   @31 - I do appreciate your comments and insight. They're tremendously helpful to me in understanding how Lotus ended up where it is today. The main reason I am complaining so much is because of that dark period you allude to. I heard the promises for so long my patience is gone. Lotus has a tremendous amount of ground to make up, and I'm not convinced yet that IBM's focus is there. The message is getting clearer and the vision less cloudy, but there are still a few troublesome spots that need to get sorted out.

   @Ed - I don't doubt IBM's commitment to selling more Notes and Domino licenses. The double-digit growth in 2005 was truly amazing. What I doubt is their commitment to giving Lotus the resources to provide a better development experience. You say you're aware more needs to be done, and you seem sympathetic for hearing the same complaints year after year. You seem baffled why we think Designer is being neglected, so let me spell it out: we keep asking for the same things year after year and don't see them delivered.

   To pour salt in the wound you just told us that Domino developer resources were being pulled to help with Websphere components. Hopefully that situaion has been corrected and there is a stable Domino developer team that isn't being siphoned off to other areas.

   @28 - If you have specific questions for Andrew it would be better to contact him directly rather than use Ed's blog as your boxing ring.

   I do agree that there is no competitor to Domino, that's why I truly want it to come into its own as the premier collaborative application development platform. That requires a state of the art development tool and deployment environment. Lotus is headed there, I just hope they make it in time that they don't lose the ground gained the last few years. I really do want them to succeed.

1. 33  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/23/2006 1:07:28 PM

   @33 - Thank you. Just keep in mind that a development cycle on big changes takes a long time. IMO, its been about 3 years now since we noticed the light bill getting paid by IBM for Westford again, and about 2 years of serious visible (from outside) work being done. Lo and Behold! We're nearing release on several major updates and addition.

   Even before Hannover, I think 7.02 looks like it starts adding really important "small" things that will make it one of the more important releases (like 3.11 and 4.6.2 were) so long as it's stable. For example, iCal is just getting important, and I think using iCal as the way to mix Notes calendaring with Google calendars on a per user basis opens many interesting doors. For example, I find google's calendar to be excellent for home use, with Barb and I coordinating kid's pickup/dropoff and activity schedules. I also overlay fire department schedules like the duty calendar for officers and the training calendar. Using iCal, I can mix all those into my Notes calendar. Very cool. I hope it works.

1. 34  David Bell  | 9/24/2006 12:26:20 AM

   @28 - "Andrew, you might well know about the importance of Maureen in driving developments in Designer/Notes, but would you care to elaborate? Why is Maureen such a star?"

   Maureen has been the face of the team responsible for the Designer for many years. Note that I said team, but she is widely recognized as the leader for the Designer product development within the Notes/Domino community. That is why she is being credited for efforts related to the product.

   Lou Gerstner is widely credited with the turnaround of IBM - did he do it himself ? No, he had a large team who helped him, but his role within the company defined why he got the credit - he *led* his team to success against all the nay-sayers and detractors.

   Maureen has *led* her team.

1. 35  Bernard Devlin  | 9/24/2006 5:32:59 AM

   @32 This is not a boxing match between me and Andrew. Ed initiated this discussion, Andrew commented on it in a way that suggested there was more to it than was immediately obvious. Others added comments that backed-up what Andrew had implied. I asked Andrew and Ed for more information regarding that background. Scott waded in with lots of criticisms of Designer, which both you and I supported. As the thread has continued, Andrew has provided more information about an apparent funding crisis for Designer, which you yourself have said has been enlightening. When this thread started I had waited quite some time for someone else to ask what the background was - when they didn't I decided I really wanted to know, so I asked the obvious question.

   Thank you to Andrew and David for eventually explaining to us why Maureen is a star, and why she should be celebrated. I too am now wiser from this discussion.

   As there is no answer coming forward as to whether or not things like a formula debugger will appear in the eclipse-based Designer, are we to take that to mean that development of Notes applications using the formula language are deprecated? Or does it just mean that there is still inadequate funding for Designer? I'm someone who came to Notes development principally from a Lotusscript/Java background but when performance really matters, it is the formula language I have to use. And there are still serious deficiencies in that and quite other fundamental areas of Notes/Domino development.

1. 36  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/24/2006 7:58:12 AM

   @35 - It is hard to get firm commitments about what isn't yet in the product. It is a painful thing to give out, because you get slapped hard if something you talked about doesn't end up being part of the final product.

   From what I've seen, not only is formula language not deprecated, new kinds of support for it have been talked about. I can't recall what is public and what is not public so I'm a bit toungue tied on it -- but as many IBM people read this maybe they can comment.

   Formula language, within the context of a form is actually a good performing language -- particularly after the version 6 rewrite of the engine. Lotuscript performs pretty well for a single threaded tool. Java performance in Domino is excellent but very tricky. The point is, you have choices to make when you're writing Domino applications, and there is no clear language to always use.

   Java is harder, more powerful, and less forgiving than the other choices for Domino development. If you're going to start using the new Eclipse based stuff and doing UI work, knowing Java will be a real benefit. Lotusscript is still there, formula language is still there, javascript is still there, and Designer's UI layout is still there.

   The more important thing to fix, IMO, isn't the debugger at all. I find the integration points between designer and rich text editors use of layout and the conversions to mime and html -- and particularly where they interface with CSS are extremely frustrating.

   We all have our priorities.

1. 37  David Bell  | 9/24/2006 10:44:18 PM

   @35 - "As there is no answer coming forward..., are we to take that to mean that development of Notes applications using the formula language are deprecated? Or does it just mean that there is still inadequate funding for Designer?"

   They're pretty big conclusions to jump to.

1. 38  Scott Wichall  | 9/25/2006 2:15:41 AM

   Wow - this thread has been busy over the weekend. I would like to think that moving to the eclipse platform will finally allow lotus to give the us the development tools we deserve. There is no doubt that there are plenty of freely available plugins already available for eclipse....

   In terms of Notes itself in eclipse - has anyone seen Office 2007 beta (I saw it myself for the first time on Friday) - looks like the UI goalposts have moved on a bit!

   I don't think this has been a boxing ring though - just a chance for a discussion and to air the developers criticisms of the development tools provided.

   As to moving from VS6 to .NET, yes that was a big step, but the runtime language changes didn't have anything to do with the vastly improved development platform - thats just UI and tools. Nice things like W3C XHTML compliance for a start, and intellisense that works properly, rather than disappearing half way through!

   :-)

1. 39  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 5:34:42 AM

   @37 Maybe they are big conclusions to jump to. But to be honest, until this thread evolved, I had no idea that Designer enhancements had been fund-starved these last 5 years. This made sense of my own feeling that Designer had not moved on in a long time, and Scott's criticisms just reinforced how much has been missing. The enhancements to Domino application development listed by Ed @22 can all be seen as ways to preserve/integrate legacy applications rather than enhancements to Notes/Domino itself. Furthermore, it's my understanding that Lotusscript will not be enhanceed in the future (please correct me if I'm wrong). Does it really seem out of place to ask if development using the formula language is being deprecated? Andrew @36 strongly suggests that some of my fears concerning the enhancement of the formula language are unfounded. However, adding a few new formulas with each future version is a limited form of enhancement when there has been an obvious need for a formula debugger for many years now.

   I'm sure there are technical position papers on these issues, but I can't find them. The Executive Briefing "IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino 7 software: the new face of business collaboration and communications" seems to emphasize integration with J2EE and preservation of existing applications. I realise that it is an Executive Briefing so one wouldn't expect much in the way of technical details. If this kind of technical position paper has been referenced before, please point me to it (I have a shamefully bad memory).

   I'm not looking to spread FUD. I just think it is a mistake if future Notes development is being targeted only towards enterprise Java development. There's barely a week goes by on { Link } (a major J2EE discussion site) without the issue of RAD coming up. There is considerable movement outside of Notes to increase the RAD capabilities of various development technologies. The principla means of achieving this is by incorporating dynamic scripting languages on top of compiled platforms (Microsoft employing the IronPython developer, Groovy on Java, attempts to produce Java equivalents of Ruby on Rails, Sun employing the JRuby people, etc). I really hope that Notes is not moving up the enterprise ecosystem at the cost of the RAD capabilities that the formula language provides.

   RAD is still very important, even if just for prototyping. If Notes was being invented in the internet age, it would probably be something like DabbleDB (which is winning awards and receiving rave reviews) - a web-based tool for building RAD applications. There is clearly still a need for RAD tools and RAD application development.

   Of course I'm not expecting IBM to break the support for the formula language, but I would hope to see that there is a realisation of the importance of the formula language and of Notes RAD capabilities, and a commitment to enhancing them e.g. with things like a formula debugger.

   I know that others are offering other enhancements as being of more importance to them than a formula debugger. However, since the buggy formula debugger was a secret part of R5 information of which leaked out, it clearly it is not only something that us developers saw as necessary, but which was also seen as being important enough to be built-in by IBM, albeit hidden and unsupported at that time. I think the lack of a working formula debugger is one of the major things that prevents 'real' developers from taking the formula language seriously.

   Of course an eclipse-based IDE offers new opportunities, and by all accounts Maureen is being rightfully idolized, but it would be good to know that formulas and RAD are still respected.

1. 40  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/25/2006 8:12:45 AM

   @39 see, this is why I called your earlier post conpsiracy-like: you've now made the assertion "that Designer enhancements had been fund-starved these last 5 years". I don't see anywhere in this thread that this has been factually stated. Even Andrew's somewhat abrasive portrayal of the path of the last few years doesn't say this. (BTW, you're right, my standard Andrew filter meant that I read right past some of the inflammatory words...I might have turned a shade of garnet reading so but it's kinda standard Andrew, and I knew what he meant by what he wrote).

   The other issue here is that I'm not a developer, so I don't have the depth of understanding of some of the specifics in the product today or the "Hannover" plan (versus core infrastructure and admin, where I have a technical background as well, really :-) ). So I can't tell you at the moment what enhancements are in core Domino Designer in the coming release...I just haven't spent any time there.

   I'll see if I can get someone to talk to this, but I probably don't want to mis-set expectations. The primary objective of the next release is end-user/client focused, moving the client UI forward, moving the client to an open platform forward by building on Eclipse, federating Notes from the Domino server and opening it to consuming Web Services, and delivering innovations like activity-centric computing and integrated productivity tools. The whole reason Maureen and the team are working on moving Designer over to Eclipse is to make a similar leap forward there, and she's rightly set expectations over and over that it isn't coming concurrent with the Notes "Hannover" release.

1. 41  Chris Doig http://chrisdoig.net | 9/25/2006 9:17:30 AM

   While I also fee frustrated at the lack of progress in Designer, we would do well to remember that huge changes in the code are very dangerous. Read the article on what happened to Wordstar in the book "In Search of Stupidity..." { Link } (a very good read, by the way)

   The old Notes code has become increasingly difficult to extend due to the way it was written. That it has lasted so long is a testimony to the underlying architecture. When maintaining code there comes a point of diminishing returns, and IBM is near that point. The change to Eclipse should open up many new avenues, but the risk to Notes is significant. And of course, it will take a lot of work that will bear fruit only in the future, rather than in Hanover. We (the Notes community) need to realize that moving to the Eclipse framework, Maureen and her team are laying a foundation that could last for the next few decades. Personally, I expect that most of the work will go into changing the foundation and be invisible to us. But we can expect a stream of bigger improvements after the release of Hanover.

1. 42  Rod Stauffer  | 9/25/2006 9:29:08 AM

   @39: You claim that FUD is not your goal, but tell me how a project to "port" Designer into Eclipse could be interpreted as a lack of funding. The simple fact it's being done at all should be evidence of Designer's importance going forward. The screen shot Maureen provided is a glimpse at the progress of that project, and I'm excited by the prospects (see @41). The road map looks great. Much better than it did 3 years ago.

   "Does it really seem out of place to ask if development using the formula language is being deprecated?"

   Given the general track record of Notes/Domino, your question is not only out of place, it's FUD. Especially in consideration of the formula language re-write for ND6 (which you've acknowledged earlier in the thread). If the re-write is not evidence of the continued importance of @formula in Notes, I don't know what is.

   Additionally there's your interpretation of Andrew's mention of past funding issues related to Notes/Domino. That was in the past. As Andrew noted, IBM has come around to understand the importance of Notes/Domino. In terms of Designer specifically, Andrew said:

   "So, now there's funding, attention, and project team focus again, and Maureen's team is out producing all those things you've been begging for."

   In another thread on this blog, Ed has mentioned that there's more developers working on Notes and Domino than a few years ago. Even you would have to agree that speaks to funding.

   Yet you continue to rail on about Designer funding, without a shred of evidence, all the while ignoring evidence contrary to your positions (Eclipse project; @formula re-write; etc.).

   Sorry to say, but to me at least, your posts are quite FUD-dy. Apparently unintentional, but FUD-dy nonetheless.

   - Rod

1. 43  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/25/2006 9:37:18 AM

   @39 - Your questions about future language support in Hannover and beyond have already been answered by Jeff Eisen { Link } and Mike Rhodin { Link } (I'm using Vowe's link because IBM's requires you to log in.)

   Formula is not being deprecated. LotusScript is not being deprecated. The Formula language engine was completely rewritten for R6 and extensive functionality added, which is why the unsupported debugger was removed. I don't see how the lack of a debugger equates to formula language being dropped. As Andrew said, it may be the biggest issue for you, but it's not a universal top priority. I agree that it does need to get there eventually, and yes, it's pretty annoying it's not there yet and yes, it's frustrating that there was a semi-broken unsupported one in R5 that got removed from R6. I won't argue any of those points. However, if I have to choose between fixing what's broken and adding new features, I'll take fixes any day. A formula debugger, when combined with the new formula engine, is a new feature.

   I also don't get your implication that formula language is the key component to Notes' RAD capabilities or that Lotus somehow doesn't get that RAD is the reason for Notes' success. Some things are easier in formula, but others are easier in LotusScript or Java. To me Notes RAD capability stems from richness of the framework, not the language(s) used, and that seems to be the approach taken by Lotus as well. If they can deliver traditional Notes RAD with Java, I say that's great.

   Personally I don't care if they do kill formula and LotusScript. If maintaining backwards compatability is stifling future growth I don't mind keeping old servers around to run old applications until I can migrate them to the newer stuff.

1. 44  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net/ | 9/25/2006 9:43:28 AM

   Since the focus of this thread has been on lack of investment since R5 in the Designer tool itself, I want make sure that the casual reader does not confuse this with lack of additional application development features. So while the UI of Designer has not radically changed, Lotus has provided hundereds of new features for developers to use/add to their applications. Here are some examples from an old ND6 presentation I used to give: Code Autocomplete, Design Locking, Shared Resouces, Layers, CSS,JavaScript Libraries, Notes / Web Event Model (and common JavaScript), Convert Pass-thru HTML to Notes Format and Convert Notes Format to HTML, Extensible Tools Menu, Data Connection Resources (DCRs), New Agent Features (run on behalf of, remote degugger, programmable views, bookmark your own design elements, webdav, embedded editors, richtext lite, colour fields, time zone fields, field hints, enhancements to ui of tables, sections, and buttons, collapsible and captionable framesets, unread count on folders, colour column formulas, tons of view enhancements (background images, grids, customizable twisties, create document from view, edit document in view), hide when columns, computed action bar labels, and many many more.

1. 45  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 10:37:38 AM

   @42 Andrew said "what has to have been the most ugly 5 year period in its history from a funding standpoint". I don't know what precise 5-year period that Andew was referring to. Perhaps he is excluding the last couple of years - on re-reading this thread, I think his 5-year period probably does not include the past 2 years. Some of his comments clearly suggest that he thinks things have turned around recently.

   As for my questions about the formula language's position - I asked to be directed to a statement concerning the place of the formula language in Notes application development in the next few years. It is conceivable to me that it will be deprecated. If Lotusscript is receiving no further enhancements, and the Notes client and Designer are going to be 'surfaced' in Eclipse, I see no reason why application development in Notes will not be Java & Javascript only in the next few years. That will be great news to those who despise the formula language. But not great news to those of us who like the choices we currently have - maybe for us that will will induce fear, uncertainty and doubt. All I'm asking is if there is a technical position statement about this. Even if there is not, I'm not going to conclude that the formula language won't be a development option in 3 to 5 years. I just don't know. Even if it is 'deprecated' that just means that it would be advisable to move future development to another language.

   Designer IDE in Eclipse: Actually, having an IDE that is an eclipse plug-in is exactly what is happening as a cost-saving measure in several areas: Apple this year announced that in future XCode will not support Java WebObjects development, advising developers to work on open-source eclipse plugins instead; I believe Borland moved JBuilder to eclipse last year before selling off their application development division this year. Of course, the new eclipse-based Designer IDE in eclipse may be really spiffing, cross-platform, etc. I'm sure there are tons of features it will have that I will welcome.

   As for the re-design of the formula engine some time before 2003 for ND6. That was fundamentally a one-man effort, and after finishing it he left IBM, and has not had much good to say about IBM since. It seems to me that at any event the re-write must have happened during the dark times that Andrew refers to. If Andrew is right, then that would suggest that the re-write of the formula engine was absolutely essential, not a sign of some great vision inside IBM concerning the advancement of the formula language in Notes.

1. 46  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 10:38:53 AM

   @40 Here you go again attributing some conspiracy to me. I really don't know who Andrew is or what he knows about the internals of the funding decisions made by IBM concerning Designer. But he appears to be knowledgable and his claims have gone unchallenged and uncorrected by you throughout this thread. You might very will 'filter' him out, but that doesn't mean that your audience are doing that. Consequently, it is ridiculous of you to accuse me of some consipracy theory concerning the funding of Designer, when you allow assertions such as the following to go unchallenged:

   @6: "she's one of the key reasons there still IS a designer client and a Notes product after all these years."

   [Reads to me like we wouldn't have had any Notes client enhancements if she had left IBM after R5, like so many other notable Lotus developers had left.]

   @27: "IBM executives where clearly doing everything possible that was wrong to do with respect to Notes, where people like Maureen who frankly accomplished more with less than anyone would have predicted. Oh, and all that while, with all the criminally stupid neglect the product got within IBM"

   [Reads to me like Designer was not expected to be advanced much at all in the last few years; "more with less" sounds like a lack of resources, which is ultimately a probable lack of funds]

   @31: "Maureen's team has kept a 20 year old product viable, stable, and agile regardless of funding and attention during what has to have been the most ugly 5 year period in its history from a funding standpoint. [...] So, now there's funding, attention, and project team focus again, and Maureen's team is out producing all those things you've been begging for"

   [An ugly period for funding reads to me like a lack of funding, and requested enhancements were not fulfilled until that funding situation was corrected.]

   It is quite clear from Andrew's perspective that there has been a serious ("criminally stupid"?) lack of funds for Designer enhancements in some 5 year period in the recent past. All I did was summarize his statements, perhaps a little boldly. If his statements are wide of the mark, since this is your blog you should correct them, not try to make me out to be some kind of tinfoil-hat nut because I did accept them. I really resent that. I note that you've toned down your allegations concerning me as "conspiracy-like". Maybe that means you are half-way to making an apology.

   It's the very fact that his comments went unchallenged (and in fact were endorsed by others early on in this thread) that led me to join in @11 and ask you at that point to comment on what was being said - I expressed my incredulity that the future of Notes had hung on one person. Subsequently Andrew made his lack of funding claims. Those were never corrected by you or Maureen or David or Alan (all IBM employees) who were posting to this thread following at least some of his funding claims. What is your audience supposed to conclude from this?

   I'm trying to understand where Notes is going to be as an application development platform in 3 to 5 years. I have business decisions to make myself.

1. 47  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 10:49:00 AM

   @44 Alan, I'm glad you intervened with that list. You are right that it is important to list all the enhancements to Notes that have occurred in the last few years. And not just for casual readers - it's good for me to be reminded of those things too.

   Notes is still an amazing product and tool. And even more amazing is that no other company has tried to emulate its feature set. It's an integral part of my business plans, and I would find it hard (maybe even impossible) to replace it.

1. 48  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 11:14:40 AM

   @39 Charles, I'm afraid the link to Jeff Eisen is a bit too brief and uninformative in the context of this discussion; the 2+ hour presentation is too much for me to wade through now. Hopefully there is some kind of technical document that someone else can point me to. I will try to watch the presentation later.

   I don't think I said that either the formula language or lotusscript was deprecated, just that it was my understanding that Lotusscript was not going to be enhanced. I quite like Lotusscript, but I don't particularly care about it not being enhanced. But Java agents and Java servlets are not really RAD.

   Of course the different programming languages in Notes have different strengths. I think the keys to RAD are ease of use, rapid-turnaround, 'intuitiveness', and a framework to support that. I'm no formula-language bigot: I was not a fan of the formula language at all - being a traditional structured programmer it took me a long time to learn to use it. I don't see that RAD is intrinsically connected to any language - in fact one of the best RAD tools I know has Java underlying it, it's just that you need never see any Java in order to produce apps using that tool. As Java currently exists as a programming language (and especially structured as J2EE webapps) it is a long way from RAD.

   I would like to see Notes as an even better RAD tool. And I don't particularly care which language is behind making that happen. But if the process involves declaring types, hunting through a huge API, catching exceptions, compile, run... then I don't think it is going to be RAD.

1. 49  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/25/2006 11:19:26 AM

   @46 you'll note that I hadn't had any chance to reply to early comments on this thread by the time you jumped in @11. By which point I, and other readers, was a bit torqued by the tone and tenor.

   I don't know why Andrew keeps going on about it being a funding issue. I can't talk about IBM financials in public, so it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong...it just shouldn't be the metric anyway.

   My point much earlier was that the decision during the last couple of years has been to focus on integration and extending the platform, rather than the core designer/development tool. I believe this has been a "skate where the puck is going" (hocky analogy) situation, rather than any indication of anything being wrong with Domino development. The whole point of the move to Eclipse is to open the platform up for both new and existing developers...to "future-proof" Notes without having to abandon what has been done for the last 16 years (which is what everyone thought was happening with the two-lane highway).

   I/we understand that you have decisions to make. I think Maureen's early previews of the Designer on Eclipse metaphor tell you what a big priority is for IBM at the moment -- again, extending the platform in a number of different ways. I know that we just published a roadmap that doesn't say a ton about the app dev side, but I also know that a colleague is working on the equivalent for app dev. I'll check in on that work and see what/when will be public.

1. 50  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/25/2006 12:49:52 PM

   @48 - My point is simply that your assessment that formula is being deprecated has been publicly denounced, both by Mike Rhodin and Jeff Eisen. Formula is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

   @49 - Ed, I know all you can do is communicate the information you're given, and share our responses with people inside Lotus when you think it is relevant or appropriate. You're caught in the middle and I appreciate your position and your willingness to participate as the middle man, even when it's thankless.

1. 51  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/25/2006 2:29:40 PM

   I don't think I've ever been so closely scrutinized for hidden meaning. I don't hide meaning in code words.

   It remains my opinion -- as an outsider looking in -- that for several years between the decision to radically pursue a websphere (then portal) based solution as a replacement strategy over the long term for the Notes and Domino product line, that IBM failed to properly advance the Domino Designer and the Notes client by allocating sufficient funding and resources to it. I believe that there was a very large and vocal group who believed it could be replaced as "a bunch of servlets running in websphere".

   Al Zollar's little slide showing a component stereo system really was the height of the hype for this approach.

   I have stated many times that the only reason Microsoft didn't eat IBM's lunch on mail and groupware during that period was that their own strategy was also in tatters and they failed to produce a serious alternative.

   In November of 2003, a whitepaper was released which for the first time in years showed Domino and Notes as a key part of IBM strategy again. I just looked up that date by searching my blog for the story I wrote about it. That was the first big outside visible break in the wall of silent stupidity.

   Again, these are all my opinions. I have plenty of them to share.

1. 52  Thomas Schulte  | 9/25/2006 3:03:18 PM

   And what comes on my mind when i read this are the dozens of parts in the designer where paths that would lead to a better RAD experience in many ways were followed only half hearted and wich are still orphans today. So sorry if this bites you Ed i and many of my collegues in germany have the same opinion Andrew has.

   We made up a list today and had six entries for that argument within one minute.

   We earn right now what has been done around 2000 until 2003. It may last another 2 years until what we see right now happens arriving at last.

   And yes the UI redesign is the right way but as Ed said it the focus was on integrating and extending the Client and the Server. So what i think is. Whatever we feel about it. Getting developer quirks straight and developing some paths in the designer to their logical ending seems not to be on that list. So waiting for those things to happen might cost us another four years or so.

1. 53  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 7:37:18 PM

   @49 Ed, is there no end to your defensiveness? You accuse me of "jumping in" and saying you didn't have time to reply.

   There were 22 comments over a 2 day period before you joined in the debate sparked by your initial posting. It's your blog. Surely you monitor it? It's not like you were travelling round Australasia after you posted this. Maybe you could set up an agent to page you when there are responses. Or maybe you don't think blogging is an important part of your job?

   Ok, maybe you posted it at 5pm on a Friday and like the good ol' pre-home working days, you were disconnected for the weekend. But no.. the thread started on Wednesday evening.

   I "jumped in" @1l, 5 comments and a full working day after Andrew's extraordinary remarks, and after several other comments agreeing with him. My comment specifically asked if what Andrew was saying was true.

   If you are going to be publicising the future direction of Notes development when you are "responsible for the continued worldwide success of Lotus Notes and Domino", and also permitting public responses to your remarks, you'd better start paying more attention to the consequences and responding more quickly and more fully. And more politely, might I add.

   At no point have you contradicted Andrew's claims that there was a 5 year funding crisis for Designer. And at no point have you apologized for your slurs with regard to me. I don't need to posit any conspiracy. If you are not prepared to contradict him after all this kerfuffle, I'm prepared to believe him (as would any other discerning reader). And your mumblings about how you "can't talk about IBM financials in public" sound like a hollow defense to me. You don't have to quote undisclosed figures. Just state here and now that he that he is right, or tell us that he is a liar or a fantasist or a conspiracy theorist. Put the ball in his court. Make him prove his remarks. Since he has already hinted that you would not want to pursue this issue, I think you are going to be silent or try to offer some further mis-direction.

   At the end of the day, if you can't manage your public platform better then maybe (like me) you shouldn't be blogging. After all, as you yourself say, your blog is in the Technorati top 6000. You expect high publicity for the postings on your blog, yet you don't bother to contradict extraordinary assertions.

   Self-promotion is a two-edged sword.

1. 54  Bernard Devlin  | 9/25/2006 7:52:53 PM

   @50 "My point is simply that your assessment that formula is being deprecated has been publicly denounced, both by Mike Rhodin and Jeff Eisen."

   Charles, are you having a bad hair day? I did not say that the formula language was being deprecated. I asked a question. I'm sorry for you if the distinction between a question and an assertion is too subtle.

   Furthermore Eisen does not "publicly denounce" (burn those witches!) that the formula language will _not_ be deprecated.

   Please point out where he says that in his 10 points.

   As far as I can see he states that _backwards compatibility_ will be maintained. That is not incompatible with deprecation. It's not even like any of the comments to his 10 points support what you are saying.

   According to wikipedia deprecation means "a feature or method marked as deprecated is one which is considered obsolete, and whose use is discouraged. The feature still works in the current version of the software, although it may raise error messages as warnings. These serve to alert the user to the fact that the feature may be removed in future releases".

   I'm asking if the formula language is being deprecated. Eisen does not answer that. Maybe Rhodin does (if I can be bothered to wade through 2+ hours of video).

   Since I assume you now understand the distinction between an assertion and a question, and you now understand the meaning of deprecation, maybe you can save me a few hours and tell me where Rhodin says the formula language is not being deprecated?

1. 55  David Bell  | 9/25/2006 9:35:42 PM

   @39 - "If Lotusscript is receiving no further enhancements, and the Notes client and Designer are going to be 'surfaced' in Eclipse, I see no reason why application development in Notes will not be Java & Javascript only in the next few years."

   @48 - "I don't think I said that either the formula language or lotusscript was deprecated, just that it was my understanding that Lotusscript was not going to be enhanced."

   What leads you to think these things ? You might not have said they are deprecated, but you keep making these assertions of no enhancement, based on ..... what exactly ?

1. 56  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/25/2006 9:37:20 PM

   @53 -- Thanks, um, for that startling level of support. LOL.

   I would only point out that from IBM's perspective, there was no funding crisis. It is only those of us who wished to see the continued growth and improvement in the product who felt that there was a crisis.

   I think the biggest crisis IBM saw was that they couldn't seem to convince us that their product wasn't worth sticking with.

   In the end, we've all been instrumental (or at least mental) in helping IBM see that their product is a good one, and worth keeping.

   For the rest, now that we're all in agreement that things are once again progressing positively, let's wait and see.

1. 57  Henning Heinz  | 9/26/2006 6:19:02 AM

   No surprise that I much agree with Andrew.

   Formula (and Lotusscript) will not be removed in a future release in the foreseeable future (next 10 years) so it does not completely fulfill your definition of deprecated.

   Lotusscript shares a lot of syntax with the old Visual Basic. While I do not expect Lotusscript to go away anytime soon the advantage that Visual Basic developers feel at home is going to fade over time.

   There are several other languages that compile the same code from different sources (Coldfusion produces Java while the developer does not have to code in Java and even the different languages of .net do something similiar afaik).

   I am just not sure myself if I would like to code in Formula and Lotusscript in 10 years.

   I do not expect the Eclipse Designer to be released in 4 years either as was expressed by Thomas. It will not be in the initial Hannover release but I would be surprised if it would not be released in 2008 or even late 2007.

   @Bernhard

   There are not many people that keep asking uncomfortable questions and I regret that but everything you write here will be read by IBM employees and the competition (say Microsoft here).

   Whenever there is a phrase that has potential to form a misleading statement it will be taken out of context and probably misquoted.

   What I think is a bit sad is that you expect answers here from others but you are not willing to invest two hours in the speech from Mike Rhodin.

   2 hours is not much if it helps you to make a decision. Not that I would says that your questions are going to be answered, I just do not know, but the statement itself sounds much like you expect being entertained by others.

1. 58  Thomas Schulte  | 9/26/2006 8:06:24 AM

   @57 Sorry Henning but what i wrote was a little bit misleading.

   I do not think that we will have to wait another four years for the eclipse designer. But i think that all those things that are not really "well designed" right now will not be in the new Eclipse Designer when it is released. Changing those things will last a minimum of four years.

   For Example a RTInsert that works (btw. in the c++ api there is a method for that). Programmable ViewColumnHeaders, Uidoc.gotofield within Tabbed Tables when the field is hidden, programmable tabbed table headers, really using CSS within all the elements of the notes (eclipse) and the web client, Global database wide variables and so on.

1. 59  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/26/2006 9:27:53 AM

   @54 - I gave you a source that answers your questions and you demand I go even further. You don't have time to help yourself, but you do take the time to insult me. I'm done with this discussion.

   @56 - I think you're likely right. It was customers' determination to stick with Notes and Domino that kept the products alive.

1. 60  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/26/2006 11:45:25 AM

   @53 Since it feels like I've been challenged to a duel...

   - Not sure about where you work, but where I work, talking about company finances in public, other than those explicitly mentioned in public disclosure documents filed with the SEC, is a firing offense. So given that, how can I say anything about Andrew's assertion? Andrew has himself given you a reaction @56. I'm not sure what else to say, and I also don't even know that this history matters anymore today. Today there are more IBM developers building Notes/Domino than any other release (that's already been publicly disclosed). The business has been growing for seven straight quarters (publicly disclosed) and as such, there are more resources.

   As for me, my job, my responsiveness. First, blogging isn't a part of my job at all. It's something I started before I took this job. But I do it because it keeps me in touch with a segment of the market. Unfortunately, not the whole market -- we don't see a lot of non-English speakers here (almost no readership in Japan, South America, southern Europe) yet they represent a significant portion of the Notes base. So upon my return from ANZ, I actually spent a good day or two catching up on all the other ways I'm involved in running the Notes business -- meetings, e-mails, internal forums, reading other blogs, and the usual IBM concalls and Sametime chats. I didn't post anything new on the blog during that time, either.

   In other words, I'm not exactly just sitting here blogging. I do know when there are new comments -- through RSS and watching the site. But sometimes I just can't jump in when I'd like to, as the rest of the job -- and life -- intervene. In fact, I never expected this post to be this active -- I figured Maureen's posting was all good news, and since it was a "link" post, expected the commenting to take place on her site. I was surprised to see it become so active here.

1. 61  Rod Stauffer  | 9/26/2006 12:58:00 PM

   @45, @46, @48, @53, @54. OK, I'm not sure the FUD is accidental anymore. Maybe someone is trying to drown out the good news...

   >>"Some of his comments clearly suggest that he thinks things have turned around recently."<<

   Exactly. Andrew has clearly, repeatedly said "things" have turned around. Yet, based on Andrew's comments, you continue to assert that Designer is currently under funded. Wow.

   >>"If his statements are wide of the mark, since this is your blog you should correct them, not try to make me out to be some kind of tinfoil-hat nut because I did accept them. I really resent that."<<

   Ed@49 already addressed that he can't publically speak to financials.

   The problem is you've only accepted Andrew's comments that fit your assertions. Andrew (and others) have made comments that counter your assertions, and you've chosen to ignore them.

   For example, you completely misread @6. Let that one go. Andrew gave a much deserved compliment to Maureen, and you fuddied the waters @11. Maureen answered in @12. As did Ed@22. And David@34. Yet you keep regurgitating your misinterpretation, refusing to read clarifying statements. As recently as @46 you chime in again with:

   >>"It's the very fact -that his comments went unchallenged (and in fact were endorsed by others early on in this thread) that led me to join in @11 and ask you at that point to comment on what was being said - I expressed my incredulity that the future of Notes had hung on one person."<<

   The "endorsement" of others was to amplify Maureen's invaluable and important contributions to the advancement of Notes/Domino. And that she's "a really neat, kind, good hearted person." Having attended several of Maureen's sessions, Designer BOFs, and the Developer Lab at Lotusphere in recent years, I have to agree with Andrew. Maureen is a special lady and is a definite asset for IBM. Nobody suggested Maureen was solely responsible for Notes.

   Here's another attempt at clarifying "one of the key reasons":

   - Red is one of the primary colours of the rainbow.

   - Red is the primary colour of the rainbow.

   Obviously those two statements are not equivalent. So, using that for @6, "one of the key reasons" != "the only reason". OK? OK.

   Not stopping there, you misinterpret "jumping in" as an attack @53. Could be a cultural difference I suppose, but where I come from (Canada), it's not an automatic accusation. Besides, an accusation wouldn't fit the context Ed's entire post @49, which I thought was rather restrained and polite. Especially so considering that @11 jumped a few lanes (as detailed above).

   To make matters worse than a simple misread, you decide to use only those two words as the basis of a defensive diatribe @53. How about looking at the context of a phrase rather than jumping to conclusions. Any apology in this thread shouldn't be coming from Ed. Take another look @49 (there's even a hockey reference... ;-).

   >>"As for the re-design of the formula engine some time before 2003 for ND6. That was fundamentally a one-man effort, and after finishing it he left IBM, and has not had much good to say about IBM since. It seems to me that at any event the re-write must have happened during the dark times that Andrew refers to. If Andrew is right, then that would suggest that the re-write of the formula engine was absolutely essential, not a sign of some great vision inside IBM concerning the advancement of the formula language in Notes."<<

   Damien performed a herculean effort to re-write the @formula engine. Essentially a one-man effort by all accounts, but that doesn't make it insignificant. Regardless of how many people were involved, it was a major project. If @formula is about to be deprecated, would IBM have invested in the re-write? Particularly in the assumed "dark time"? Besides, Damien went beyond a re-write as he advanced the feature-set in new directions. Again, I assert that the re-write itself is solid evidence that @formula is not to be deprecated. Ignore the effort. Ignore the significance. Ignore the advancement. Ignore the investment. That's your choice. Just don't expect a valid or accurate conclusion.

   >>"If Lotusscript is receiving no further enhancements,..."<<

   If you don't want to spread FUD, why allude to something like this?

   >>"Designer IDE in Eclipse: ..."<<

   You listed several "cost saving" items, that have absolutely nothing to do with IBM funding Designer in Eclipse. You've simply listed a number of commercial IDEs that compete with Eclipse. Designer *in* Eclipse is not competing *with* Eclipse. Period. It will be Designer, inside Eclipse. Again, the fact IBM is funding the "port" of Designer into Eclipse is evidence of funding/spending/investment in Notes/Domino/Designer. It's a big project. A big effort.

   No idea who Andrew is? Here's an idea. Click the link to this web site and blog. Left hand side: "About Andrew". Also on left hand side are numerous presentations.

   Confused about the future of Notes and Domino as it relates to Hannover? Here's a couple sources of info:

   - Two white papers on the future of Notes/Domino (these were referenced recently by both Ed and Alan) http://www.alanlepofsky.com/alepofsky/alanblog.nsf/dx/notesdomino-whitepapers

   http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/weekend-reading-new-hannover-and-notesdomino-roadmap-executive-whitepapers?opendocument&comments

   - Jeff Eisen's blog: "The Road to Hannover" http://www.jeffeisen.com/jeisen/jeisenblog.nsf

   - Mary Beth Raven's blog http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/marybeth

   >>"I'm afraid the link to Jeff Eisen is a bit too brief and uninformative in the context of this discussion; the 2+ hour presentation is too much for me to wade through now."<<

   Like I said, you're refusing to hear any comment that contradicts your own conclusions. Take a break from posting in this thread ("unintentional" FUD is still FUD). Read some of the referenced items. Like this one:

   http://www.jeffeisen.com/jeisen/jeisenblog.nsf/dx/should-you-learn-java-for-hannover

   - Rod

1. 62  David Raciot  | 9/26/2006 1:43:07 PM

   oooh the silence. is everyone on the edge of their seat waiting for the response to this one .... ;-)

1. 63  Andy B http://andy.the-broyles.com | 9/26/2006 2:43:46 PM

   Not that I want to take on the burden of defending the Domino Designer, but I do think that this is a silly topic.

   My father once told me that it is a poor carpenter that blames his tools.

   Certainly, as a developer, I want the best toolset available for my development; but if I have a choice, I would prefer that IBM divert all tool development funds into improving the client and the server, for without those, the designer tool is worthless.

1. 64  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/26/2006 3:39:43 PM

   Andy, this topic has been discussed to death. I think, everybody should get on the next horse.

1. 65  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/26/2006 6:01:00 PM

   I think Andy has a valid point, as do many of the other postings. I am not sure if one week constitutes "discussed to death" so if there is something else to be said, it should be said...

1. 66  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/26/2006 7:28:31 PM

   Of course there are many things to be said.

   I can drag out the tapes of my interview with Danny Sabbah, General Manager of Rational Software, a manager with deep technical background whom I first met in June 2000, when the WebSphere brand was launched. We talked this year in Mainz about software lifecycle management and what kind of value IBM brings to the table. His statements are completely on the record and he was joined by the german Rational chief.

   We briefly touched on Lotus Domino and that the Domino Designer does not play with any of Rational's source code management systems nor any of the open standard ones. Sabbah was not concerned since he did not see much value in Domino applications beyond the "departmental" solutions. He clearly did not see this kind of software as an asset that needed to be managed.

   It's not the carpenter that blames his tools. We all know that Real Programmers Don't Need Debuggers. They just copy con application.exe.

   What I mean with "discussed to death" is the crystal ball reading re Designer funding.

1. 67  Thomas Schulte  | 9/27/2006 2:31:18 AM

   @63 Nah Andy. You are only partially right. Yes it is a poor carpenter who blames his tools but it is even a poorer carpenter who does not try to fix it when his tools are working only 90% the way they should do.

   To widen that analogy. If i am a carpenter and i see that some of the functions my tool should have are not properly designed what should i do.

   Lets take a carpenters hammer. I got one where the grabbing (i do not know if this is the right word for it. I mean the small side that has two tips with different lengths) tip is 2 inches wide. Ok overall it does its work, i can hammer nails in and pull them out, but if the tip of my hammer would not be 2 inches but only 0,1 inches wide i could use it to grab the wood with it too because that is what it is intended to do also.

   So i have two options. Throw away that hammer and buy a new one from another toolmaker that is designed better in that partial way. Or going to that toolmaker i decided to work with at first and tell him. Hey man your hammer is good. It is stable and reliable. It never slips out of my hand. Can you please change the tip that way so that it gets it full functionality? I am paying for your maintanance so please ...

   The designer is a hell of a good tool. The whole Lotus family is. But, there are a lot of rough edges in there wich could and should be smoothened.

   And i have not seen and do not see that happen on a regular and foreseeable base.

1. 68  Thomas Schulte  | 9/27/2006 3:09:04 AM

   May be the route Mary Beth Raven takes with her domino ui blog would also be appropriate for discussing those flaws and more or less official reactions from IBM beyond the "Notes is working as designed" message you get oh so often when you throw an ESR in the ring.

1. 69  Andrew Pollack http://www.thenorth.com/apblog | 9/27/2006 6:32:49 AM

   @All - Sure it's fair to be frustrated by tools that don't work the way you'd like.

   I'm currently working to finish a pretty big project. To get it done, I'm using Domino Designer, Visual Studio.net, joe (joe's own editor), paint shop pro, eclipse, and two browsers. They're all good for different things.

   The problem isn't just about updating Designer. The things you do with designer are changing rapidly right now. Code patterns don't look the same as they did a few years ago and code doesn't live in one place.

   This thread started as a celebration of exciting new developments, many of which are exactly what Bernard and others are demanding. They're getting to what you want done. The discussion was hijacked into a giant bitch session by a few people about how those things aren't getting done fast enough.

   That, friends, is most frustrating.

1. 70  David Raciot  | 9/27/2006 8:40:32 AM

   @66. If what you say is true then Mr. Sabbah is suffering the same lack of understanding of Notes as a lot of CIOs and non Notes techies (and IBM sales?) do. I would suggest that Mr. Sabbah look at the facts and that Notes is not "departmental" in fact it is GLOBAL.

1. 71  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/27/2006 9:51:07 AM

   @70 - Mr. Sabbah shows his own ignorance of how much business is conducted using Notes applications, and therefore the intrinsic value proposition of the Domino platform, but he isn't far from the mark regarding how Notes is used.

   Notes isn't about building huge overarching enterprise platforms. You won't see a full ERP implementation on Notes because that's not what it's good at. You will see high-value departmental or cross-functional applications, though. Notes is about collaboration and information management. It's good at automating processes that take hundreds of man hours to complete manually.

   Nearly all Notes apps are departmental in nature: HR forms, CRM, budgeting, help desk, document management... These have enterprise-wide implications but they are mainly intended for use by a single department. In many cases the information will be distributed company-wide, and one of the key things Notes brings to the table is the ability to easily share information. That's what collaboration is all about.

   Building an enterprise application in Notes is difficult because that's not what it has traditionally been used for. The toolset is still evolving for how to do collaborative apps so it will necessarily take time to expand to enveloping other types of applications. As more people get the value of collaboration and start exploring ways to enhance traditional enterprise applications with it, it is natural to see them try to shoehorn in more enterprise application features, such as code management.

   So I say yes, Notes is used for departmental apps and as David mentioned, sometimes the reach of the application spans the globe. I don't see a problem with any of this, and frankly I don't care if the head of Rational Tools doesn't get Notes. That says more to me about his own lack of vision than it does about anything to do with the products.

1. 72  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/27/2006 11:13:13 AM

   Charles, if you claim that Danny Sabbah is ignorant and lacks vision, we are not on common ground.

1. 73  Rod Stauffer  | 9/27/2006 11:24:28 AM

   @69. Agreed. The snapshot provided by Maureen on the status of Designer in Eclipse is encouraging news to say the least. Unfortunately this thread devolved in a hurry. Most frustrating indeed.

1. 74  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/27/2006 11:40:19 AM

   @72 - All I know of Danny Sabbah is the statements you provided. I had never heard of him until you posted here. Based on your reaction I'm assuming I misread his statements to be more negative than they really were. I took them to mean Danny didn't value Notes and Domino. It seems he intended to say that the type of applications Notes and Domino deliver don't need the level of management larger enterprise applications need. This interpretation seems more accurate and I respectfully withdraw my prior comments about his vision.

   However, this does beg the question of how this is relevant to the discussion at hand. Is Danny involved in the future direction of Domino Designer?

1. 75  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/27/2006 11:59:55 AM

   I find it quite relevant, because this is a gaping hole in Designer. Not being able to manage source code, to manage versions and builds, no checkpoints, nothing. And while every little piece in Linux, everything on sourceforge is handled in source code databases, it does not seem to matter with Domino applications.

1. 76  Matt  | 9/27/2006 1:33:41 PM

   @75 - to be fair, there are (at least) 3 version control products for Domino Designer.

1. 77  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/27/2006 1:51:47 PM

   Would any of them be on this page? { Link }

1. 78  Matt  | 9/27/2006 2:09:54 PM

   Apparently not.

1. 79  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com/ | 9/27/2006 7:53:40 PM

   @75-78 I'm not sure it's fair to lump Domino in with those other environments for 2 very important reasons. First, I don't know of any other environment that has a single container for both the design of the application and the data. Second, and probably more important, nobody else does replication anything like Domino. Those 2 facts alone make traditional source code control not possible as far as I know.

   Sean---

1. 80  David Raciot  | 9/28/2006 9:07:35 AM

   @71. The word 'departmental' sounds like 'small' and as such creates an image of piddly little applications that do not mean much to the business. It kind of puts it in the space of MS Access. We all know Notes is way bigger than that and some companies (and States) run a lot or most of their mission critical applications (including HUGE web portals) on it.

1. 81  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/28/2006 9:53:29 AM

   @80 - I don't disagree, and in retrospect a more accurate statement would be that in my experience departmental applications often grow to become enterprise applications. I mean that in the sense of cross-functional collaborative apps that expand beyond the bounds of a single department to have enterprise-wide applicability.