Beyond The Yellow Bubble

I have participated in two separate migrations to Notes 8.5.  One from 8.0 and the other from 6.0.   Before migrating, thorough testing has been requested for the core Notes client functionality (Mail, calendar etc.) and detailed testing of existing applications.  This testing consumes a LOT of time.  One aspect of testing that was not a focus for either migration was testing of Domino Designer.  I have done a lot of migrations over the years.  It seems that unless you are a Lotus Business Partner, Notes developers are simply not a key focus for Notes/Domino migrations.  As long as the client and the applications run then who cares, right?

For any Notes developers out there in the planning stages of a Notes 8.5 migration let me strongly recommend including in that plan a process that will allow for the testing of the new development environment.  While it is release 8.5.0 for Notes, this is really release 1.0.0 for Domino Designer for Eclipse.  Ideally this evaluation should be done BEFORE a decision is made by your organization to migrate to 8.5.0.  DDE has the feel of two products in one.  The new XPages, Custom Controls, Themes, and even the CSS editor all seem to exploit the Eclipse platform.  The remaining design elements that existed prior to 8.5 seem to be a force fit into the Eclipse environment in which a few aspects now behave like Eclipse while other aspects behave like the old Domino Designer.  And from what I can tell IBM still need some convincing that it would be worth their while to change the editors for these design elements to behave more like Eclipse.  So we have to deal with two interfaces inside one.

I guess because the old designer is somehow trying to run inside the new designer I am seeing a wide range of issues occurring, issues that can have a significant impact of developer productivity.  I am presently on break from Xpages kindergarten and doing a lot of classic Notes development, but now using DDE.  So far I have identified and logged (internally) 40+ separate issues with Domino Designer.  Now I expected my productivity levels to fall while learning XPages, I was not expecting to also be hit with a productivity drop for classic Notes design.  Over the past few weeks my productivity level for classic Notes has fallen by ~ 30%.  This can be attributed to:-

1. Learning the new DDE interface (a drag on my productivity that will go away quickly)
2. Logging issues as I encounter them.
3. Instability with clients.  Issues with DDE itself and the impact it seems to have on the Notes client typically result in me restarting Notes 4-5 times a day.  The total restart time for my workstation is about 10 minutes for both clients so I am losing as much as an hour a day with this.  Note: To close the clients correctly you actually have to wait a few minutes after the Notes screen disappears before restarting.  if you don't then Notes will failt to load and you have to log off and quite likely have a slower restart due to consistency chacks.  I am not sure how you're supposed to tell when Notes has stopped running!
4. LotusScript simply does not play nicely with DDE.  New issues are appearing with code that was running fine with Notes 6.0.  Periodically LS libraries now stop working and I have to find and recompile these modules (I think it's sun spots).  And the worst one of all is that the LS debugger is often rendered ineffective.  Not only can the LS debugger cause side effects of its own, but I am seeing a lot of LS error messages of the type "Generic LSE Failure".  With these errors the debugger does not show which module the error is occuring in, which line of code it is at, or even the contents of the variables.  This makes debugging a nightmare.  It was so much fatser to diagnose and fix "Object Variable not set at line 59 in module Initialize".
   

I am not saying don't migrate to 8.5.0!  The migration to 8.5 has many benefits outside of Domino Designer, and you also get access to XPages with 8.5.0.  What I am suggesting is that before you get too far down the migration path, do some thorough testing of DDE.  This can be challenging.  It was only really when I started using DDE full-time that I encountered many of these issues.  Playing around with Xpages or opening and closing design elements etc. is often not enough.  DDE 8.5.0 is certainly not impossible to work with but it does take a lot of patience and the need to refine your development process to work around these issues (e.g. always close designer before swithcing Notes IDs).  And you certainly should over-estimate your upcoming development projects to factor in the potential loss of productivity>  IBM will hopefully resolve some of these issues soon.  Hopefully with 8.5.1 when some of the productivity loses can be offset by the shiny new LotusScript editor.

In a previous blog, I commented on the fun I have been having with Notes 8.5.0 getting my LotusScript code to reliably tell me the current view or document using NotesUIWorkSpace.  Today I can share another one of the quirks with Notes 8.5.0 that is slowing me down as a Notes developer....

It seems that somewhere between Notes 6.0.4 and Notes 8.5.0 the LotusScript debugger stopped stepping through the code contained in the Initialize module of LotusScript libraries.  When the debugger is on and the error is in the Initialize module the debugger comes up with absolutely no information at all.  There are no objects listed, no events, no source code, no variable information. 

The only way I have found so far to debug this code is to take the code out of Initialize and place it in an agent that does a Use on the LotusScript Library.  If you have nested LotusScript Libraries, some detective work may be required to find which Initialize event has the problem.

I am not sure if this is related, but the error messages I was receiving were not teh traditional LotusScript errors I have ever seen in the past.  The error I got was "Type mismatch in method CoerStrToNum: STRING found, NULL expected".  This was the cool new way Notes 8.5 was telling me I was trying to call a method with two parameters when only one parameter was provided.

I have been having lots of fun the past 3 weeks using Domino Design 8.5.0.  There are LOTS of issues.  There is one in particular I would like to bring to the attention of Notes Developers who use LotusScript heavily and have already or will soon migrate to 8.5.0.

It seems in the world of Eclipse the NotesUIWorkspace class no longer be relied upon in the same way it  could in the past.  In particular the CurrentView and CurrentDocument properties of this class can be totally unpredictable.  When you use the Notes 8.5 client (especially with Designer running) you will often see the screen flicker, move around, or randomly switch between the Designer client and the Notes client.  I have even seen a minimized Designer client reappear on the screen for no apparent reason.  Yes, my client is officially haunted!!  I am guessing this relates to the way the Notes client interacts with Eclipse and that certain background tasks trigger parts of the clents temporarily gaining focus.  If this occurs at the same time as a piece of LotusScript code is using NotesUIWorkspace to gain access to the current view or document then you might end up with nothing, or a reference to something totally unexpected.  These errors are random and very hard to reproduce.  An application will test occy 99 times and then fail the 100th time with the same test script.

If you have the LotusScript debugger running it gets much worse.  The debugger seems to make the NotesUIWorkspace lose all sense of where it was at the time the LS code was invoked.  e.g. LotusScript code inside a view action whose first line of code is Dim UIW as New NotesUIWorkspace now has no knowledge of the CurrentView.

The end result of all this is that code that runs without the LS debugger running no longer runs when the debbugger is running.  So if you are trying to debug LS code you may find your code breaks well before you get to the bit you are debugging.

The only workaround I have found so far is to try and redesign the code in a way that information about the current NotesUIView or NotuesUIDocument are stored in a variable that is global to the form or view as part of a QueryOpen or similar event that passes in a reference to the source object.  This may not always be possible.  In that case you may find yourself like me reverting back to print and dialogbox statements as a very primitive alternative to the LS debugger.

I haven't gotten to play with Xpages much these past few days so I will continue with my commentary about DDE

The Good - Problems - No Problems! - So if you have been reading my previous articles you will have see me mention several times the large number of panels that now open up inside DDE.  This is both a good and bad thing!  One of those new panels is the Problems panel that appears down near the bottom of the screen.  This provides something I wave long wanted, a place where all the coding issues with my application are listed.  And not just errors with the current design element, not even just the errors with the current application, but it seems that it will report errors and warning for all the applications that "Active".  Don't wask me to define active I havent figured that out yet.  But I did have the pleasure of seeing all my bugs from multiple applications consolidated and displayed in a single list.  I  wont embarass myself and say how many! 

Prior to DDE it was an absolute pain to search through an application and find coding issues.  For LS it seemed the only effective way to to compile all the LS elements.  Only the list that then displayed all your errors would disappear after you opened the first one.  With CIAO you had better remember to check everything out before recompiling^%$#!     And then there were all the subforms and shared actions that not even this would find.  Missing views, forms, agents etc.  well good luck, that's what we havve a QA team for right? (if your lucky) .   In 8.5.0 the problems panel does not seem to be wired into all the design elements but the intent is clearly there so don't be surprised if you see it becoming a bigger and bigger part of your developing life soon.  With 8.5.0 it is very useful with when your in Xpages kindergarten...

The Bad - I Hate Moving House - I really do and I am am moving house in three weeks too (yuk)...  DDE is a little like going away on a long business trip only to return home and find your wife has rearranged all the furtniture  and changed your sock draw!  In 8.0 Databases became Applications and the LotusScript Debugger got moved.  I am still making mistakes with those.  Now I have to get used to having many of my design elements moved to different locations.  Of course IBM have given prime time to its new wonder children Xpages and Custom Controls while creating new categories for other legacy elements.  OK so its only a minor anoyance that we have had before with Notes R5.  I just want IBM to finally be done and stop moving my sock draw.

I typically blog about two things.  Books I am reading and my latest gadget :)  No, its my pet  .Domino Framework project on OpenNTF and my interest in the future direction of Notes.  In a way the two are interwined....

Jan Schulz  has posted a very good article questioning the future of LotusScript and the Notes client.  It is was one of a growing number of varied perspectives I have been reading with interest.  I have been asking myself similar questions over the past year since the 8.5 beta was first released.  I have also had the chance to look closely at the 8.5.1 beta, a release I have long said would be a pivotal release in Notes history.  And while I cannot disclose anything specific about 8.5., 1 I still feel this is the case.

I have been doing my bit to create debate within the yellowverse about the direction Notes development might be going .  Not because I believe I have the answers but because I believe it is a very important issue for us ALL to discuss.

1. The organizations for whom we all work must eventually decide about migrating Domino servers and Notes clients to 8.5.0 (and 8.5.1 when it  is released).  The Domino server side is much easier to execute and IBM have created a compelling business case for doing this.  The client side seems to often be driven by support issues and the functionality of the mail client.  Sadly few companies I have worked for are driven to deploy newer Notes clients to allow Notes developers to build better applications (but they should!).  Regardless of where you may sit on the arguments about the use of LS, Java, SSJS, XPages etc. having your companies upgrade their Notes clients to 8.5.1 is only going to increase your options as a developer.  You need to convince yourself that this release is important enought to fight for.
   
2. Whether you are a contractor or employee, your value as a Notes developer depends heavily on the skill set you have and the skills that are now needed.  Almost certainly there will now be some change in the skill sets that are being sought for Notes development.  So each of us needs to make decisions about what skills we want to develop to allow us to continue to be important to our current employer as well as make us attractive o prospective new employers.  This doesn't mean always moving the latest and greatest.  If you had jumped on the Java bandwagon when Java was first added to Notes you would have a skill that is of value but is still largely a niche market for Notes (I have never had a Java Notes developer work on any of my teams).  If you jumped onto the IBM Workplace bandwagon you would have made IBM happy but you would have acquired skills that were largely useless (except perhaps in now helping you with XPages).
   
3. It is no fun working with old code and companies seem to be forever replacing legacy applications.  If Notes code does change significantly as a result of XPages it would be better to stop producing legacy code sooner than later.
4. Notes has defied the odds to remain a vibrant product in part because it acquired a niche market.  It filled a void between low end Excel/Filemaker products and the high end Java/Oracle & .Net/SQL Server platforms.  It is classic marketing scenario, if we chose to leave our present market to compete in another more lucrative market (e.g. Web development) we better make sure we gain more customers than we lose.
   

Every change brings opportunity.  And those that profit the most from change are those that see it coming and position themselves to take advantage of the change.

We are seeing a lot of change in what is now being offered for Notes development but I am not sure the future of Notes is yet written.  That is because we have separate camps each being motivated by different things

1. IBM: I have long argued that Quickr and Lotus Connections could easily have been added as extensions to Lotus Notes giving both products the power of the rich client experience while still allowing a more universal Web client access.  Of course such an approach may not allow IBM to generate additional revenue streams that new products allow.  IBM also invested a lot of money into developing IBM Workplace.  They can only begin to recoup those costs if they find alternative products into which they can inject this technology.  IBM also has a product portfolio in which the common programing language is largely Java/Eclipse, with the exception of Notes and Symphony.  I am sure IBM want to see Notes form part of an integrated product offering and would love to see all us Notes developers programming in Java of SSJS.  I am sure Xpages is largely being added by IBM as a way of meeting some of these goals.
   
2. Notes Gurus: The Notes community has a relatively small number of people who are constantly finding ways to redefine just what Notes is capable of doing.  The best example of this is Lotus911's Bones project.  Most of the Notes gurus tend to be located in software development companies or large companies which invest heavily in technology.  This group are prominent in our community through blogs, presentations at LotusSphere etc, OpenNTF, and the Design Partner program.  Simply put their voice is probably a lot louder than the general Notes community combined.  It is in their interest to see technologies such as XPages come to the fore.  They are better placed than most to deal with the added complexities of technologies being added to Notes like  Xpages, Java, SSJS, Eclipose, Expiditer etc. and motivated by the superior quality of what they can then produce.
3. The Yellow Blob: Most of us are in a position where we must follow rather than lead.  We work with the version of Notes our employer provides.  We build Notes client solutions when asked for, and Web client solutions when called for.  We do have some influence.... We often do have a significant input into how our assigned projects are architectured and designed.   With XPages and Composite Applications we now have additional choices.  XPages adds a lot more capabilities to Notes but there are a lot of Notes things it still can't do.  It was not designed for Notes but adapted to work with Notes.  It also requires a whole new learning, something not all of us are in a position to do.  It will be up to you to decide the extent to which XPages and CA are adopted in your application design.  Customers don't ask for XPages and more than they ask for Java or LS.  They ask for functionality, ease of use, and performance (oh and for a low cost).  You must decide the most cost effective way to deliver those requirements with the toolset now at your disposal.  You do have a say despite what IBM wants -- you didn't follow IBM's lead with Java for Notes, Workplace or DB2 and IBM did listen.
   

My series of blogs on XPages are entitle "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly": for a reason.  There is both a good side and a bad side to XPages.  And 8.5.1 probably provides more questions than answers.  There is some really powerful stuff there in 8.5.1 that we should all be pushing to get access to when it is released later this year.  What I can say about 8.5.1 is I do not see either the Notes client or traditional Notes client development going away any time soon.  Lets be clear, 8.5.0 was for Web developers, 8.5.1 is for Notes client developers.  It is public knowledge that 8.5.1 brings XPages to the Notes client.  But what exactly does it bring to the Notes client?  To what extent does IBM plan to bring the many great features already available to Notes application development into XPages.  The NSF container, replication, security, design templates, Rich Text editor, view control, outlines (including drag/drop), shared actions, shared fields, shared columns, personal folders, profile documents, name fields, Sametime awareness, and yes LOTUSSCRIPT.  Having seen 8.5.I have thought a lot these past two weeks about what it means for me.  I do about 95% of my development for the Notes client.  The XPages project I am working on at the moment is to enhance a dual client application in which the existing Web component was a little hokey.  XPages can fix that.  I am not walking away from the Notes client.  I believe strongly in the power of a rich client over a Web browser.  I believe given the chance to deploy and use 8.5.1 not only will I be continuing to do mainly Notes client development but  with the power it gives me I will be pushing to have Notes client applications displace Web-based applications being developed in non-Notes platforms.  Notes 8.5.1 is simply that good.  But it is not (yet) perfect.  In my next blog I would outline my view on what my ideal Notes development platform would looks like.

For the past six and a half years my job has been to work with and get as much as possible out of the Notes 6.0 client.  I work as an independent contractor and for some reason every one of my clients since lates 2002 seemed to be using this one release.  If things go to schedule the last of the workstations I use will soon be upgraded to Notes 8.5.0 allowing me to start work on my first (paid)  XPages project on Monday.  This is one of the reasons I will be releasing 1.0 of the .Domino Framework in two weeks time.  I no longer have the motivation or need to expand on the capabilities of Notes 6.  So in addition to building applications for Notes/Domino 8.5. I plan to start work almost immediately on .Domino Framework 2.0.  This version of the framework will be targeted at Notes 8.5.1.  Not yet released, but in my opinion its the 8.x release most targeted at  Notes Client development (DDE LS Editor, XPages for Notes client etc.)  I blogged about my disappointment with 8.5.0 previously.  Don't get me wrong, 8.5.0 is a great release.  It seems to be the most stable and best performing of the 8.x releases.  What concerns me is that just as many of the clients I have worked for seemed to get stuck on Notes 6.0 I am hoping they dont also get stuck on 8.5.0 preventing me from getting to the cools things I want to use in 8.5.1 and beyond.  Notes 6.0 has served me well and I do have a few misgivings about the slowness of Domino Designer 8.5.0 but I am really looking forward to getting my hands dirty with 8.5. development.  Xpages here I come......

For those of you who took yesterday off and missed all the excitement generated by the posting of the following YouTube video about a new product code-named bones developed by Lotus911

If you are a Notes developer and you have not yet watched this 20 times please do yourself a favor and watch it closely. Not because you may ever be in the market for, or find yourself developing. applications for the healthcare industry but for the way this should challenge your thinking about what a Notes application is and how a Notes application should look. I was already excited about my company upgrading my work environment to Notes 8.5 next Monday. But this video, and related information posted about it, has completely challenged my thinking yet again about what I could/should be striving for with my own Notes applications. Something Mr NTF (Nathan T Freeman) has been known to do on a regular basis! When I first watched the video I was in the office and had the sound on my workstation turned down, so I missed the introduction. As I started to watch it I was quite impressed with the application but was a little displeased that Nathan had clearly moved on from Notes development into the traitorous world of Non-Notes development. What on earth was he doing???? Oops I may have been a little wrong there....

This application is simply brilliant at a number of levels:-

1) User Interface
The effort that has gone into the visual display and the human interface is amazing. In my opinion it is right up there with some of the slick things Apple have done with the iPhone. That device is an iPhone on steroids. Even without the plugin.xml tweaks to hide components of the Notes client, it is hard to recognize the Notes elements which have been so nicely rendered using Eclipse SWT controls. I am sure I will be racking my brains for the next 12 months trying to figure out how to do some of that stuff.

2) Software Engineering
This is so unlike any Notes application I have every seen before, I can't help but think that it took the collective minds of a lot of the gurus over there at Lotus911 to actually put this together. (and perhaps access to the 8.5.1. Notes client beta to make it work?). I can't wait until Nathan and others start to share some insights into how some of this was done. I suspect over time the Notes Development community will learn a lot from the snippets of information that are made available about how this was done.

3) Complete Solution
This application was way more than just a Notes database with an awesome UI stuck on top. Nathan had already done that before with Carousel. What I really liked here was how some of the key strengths of Lotus (Composite Applications, Eclipse, Data Encryption, Replication, and Foundations Server) were combined into an awesome low-maintenance SMB solution with an equally impressive piece of hardware with which to interact.

4) Productivity
"1 visual designer, 2 full-time devs, 2 part-time devs. 90 days so far."
I am dying to learn from Nathan why this application was being developed in Notes and not some other platform. I suspect part of the reason is that no other platform would allow something this slick to be developed in anywhere near this amount of time. And no matter what Lotus911's hourly rates are, I am sure the $$ cost is also quite impressive.

Congratulations to Nathan and the Lotus911 team for not only a great product but also helping to create a few cracks in the glass ceiling that has for so long prevented Notes application development from being taken seriously by IT executives as a real kick-arse application platform.

Disclaimer: Bones was developed by Lotus911 who sponsor bleedyellow and provide this blog site. If any of these comments look at all like serious sucking up to the sponsors of my blog --- this is purely coincidental (as I do all my sucking up in private).

As most members of the yellowverse probably know by now, IBM have announced the first (closed) beta release of Notes 8.5.1.  I don't know about you but for me (as a Notes developer) this probably represents the single most important release of Notes since Notes R5.  I don't have a copy (yet), but I defintely want Santa to place one under my Christmas tree well before Christmas day.

What makes it so important?  While IBM marketing seem to be placing greater emphasis on the extension to mobile devices such as iPhone, there are three little items that get a brief mention:-

1. Eclispe-based editor for LotusScript:  The power of Eclipse is finally being released for LotusScript programmers.  While we still are not seeing any major enhancements to the LotusScript language this new editor promises to provide dramatic productivity improvements to those of us that spend all day writing LotusScript code.  This is especially true for OOP where it has been a real pain to maintain large Class libraries.
   
2. Eclipse based editor for Java:  I am not a big user of Java, but I have a lot of respect for what the language can do.  If you do program in Java then I am sure you are going to appreciate having a full-featured Java edited inside DDE.  After all, Eclipse was built on/for Java!  The real holly grail for Java developers (Java UI classes) seems to have been pushed back to 8.5.2 (or later)
   
3. XPages for Notes Client: There has been a lot of excitement in the yellowverse about Xpages and the way this new design element promises to transform the way we develop Web applications in Domino.  My excitement has been not as great as my focus is largely on application development for the Notes client.  Based upon the limited information I have, Xpages for the Notes client is probably the single biggest enhancement to Notes client development outside of Forms, Views, and LotusScript.  I am surprised more has not been spoken about  XPages for Notes until now.  The following are some of the reasons why I expect Notes developer to scramble to convert applications to use this design element almost exclusively:-
   
1. Dual Multi Client Development: Ever since Notes 4.5, Lotus has sought to provide a way to support a thick and thin client in a single application.  The potential of this has never been fully relaised due to limitations with the existing design element that has often lead to two applications existing inside the one NSF.  We have probably all struggled with the challenges of needing large amounts of client specific code to make this work.  While Xpages still needs to evolve I expect it will reduce the complexity considerably in making an application look/feel the same on  a wide range of clients that include Notes, Web browsers, and mobile devices.
2. Application Configuration: One of the really cool features of Xpages is that almost everything is configurable as a formula.  IBM have now opened Pandora's box for all those things you have wanted to change dynamically but never could (e.g. column title for a view, disabling an edit control)
   
3. Source Code For Design Elements: Xpages can be viewd/edited as either a visual design or source code.  The source code is a great addition if you want to do a mass change (e.g. change all references of Arial to your favorite font).  It also means we can send the entire design element as a piece of text to another developer and not have to enclose it inside an NSF for transportation.  And we can probably use XSLT safely to automatically apply design standards and best practices
   
4. Multiple Data Sources: Unlike Forms, an Xpage is not restricted to displaying data from a single Notes document.  This opens up the capability to consolidate data from multiple documents/sources without the need to use @DBLookup etc.  And while the initial versions of XPages only support data inside NSFs,  the groundwork seems to have been laid for a later expansion to bring in data from other sources such as XML and SQL databases.  I typically back myself to develop an application in Notes 3-4 times faster than I could develop the application in an environment such as .Net (even after I took the .Net classes!).  But I have always been constrained that my Notes application cannot compete with the sheer speed of SQL Server, ORACLE etc for high volume applications.  Nor can I provide relational capabilities such as JOINs which are often sought as part of an application's requirements.  Give me the ability to bring SQL data into my Notes application and the sky is the limit.  In a difficult economy why would a company want to spend so much money building a  front end to an ORACLE database using C# or Java when they could do it in Notes for so much less?
   

Thanks IBM... we now have a classy client (8.0.0) that runs a little faster (8.0.2) that has dramatically reduced the cost of ownership (8.5.0) and now will allow developers to build 21st century applications for both the Web client (8.5.0) & (soon) Notes client (8.5.1).  Every Notes client developer should be pushing IBM to provide more information and to gain access for your organizations to the 8.5.1 betas.  In 2-3 years time we will most likely be developing Notes applications in a radically different way than we are today.  8.5.1 is the release that will start us down that path and we need to prepare for that transition.

Update: The following entry from a Design Partner (i.e. someone in the know  - wink wink) is not inconsistent with the above suggestions.

During my time as a Notes developer (mostly as an independent contractor/consultant) I have had the chance to work  with a large number of companies on four separate continents.  In all that time I cannot remember a single client in which the Notes development was ever considered "strategic".  In fact, in many, the attitude towards Notes was (and often still is) decidedly hostile.  So if Notes is often seen (unfairly?) as the ugly duckling in the programming world, why is there so many Notes databases out there and so many Notes developers still being employed?

One of the reasons for this seems to be that fact that unlike many other development platforms, Notes has always extended down to reach many people who would not be typically classified as programmers.  People can start out with a Notes template such as TeamRoom or Discussion Library and get a small application up and running pretty quickly.  These same people then find that with little or no formal programming experience they can add a few fields to a form, add another column to a view or even create a whole new view from scratch.  Then using nothing more than a few simple forms, views, and  little bit of @functions and @commands a whole new application can be built to automate a task that may have outgrown an Excel spreadsheet or fits some new process.  A few of the more adventurous "non-programmers" even find some basic LotusScript within their capabilities.  To a seasoned Notes programmer many of these applications look decidely ugly and badly written but they are highly effective.  They provide the basic functionality that is needed by the business and because they have usually flown underneath the radar screen nobody has bothered to question whether Notes is the right tool to use.

It is usually only when the application breaks, the creator leaves/transfers, or there is a need to enhance the application that it suddenly appears on the radar screen of a Notes development group.  As a developer I often get assigned to work on applications that were orginally developed this way.  Whilst I may be tempted to curse the bad design, inefficient code, and the fact a production application is running on a development server, I can also be thankful that another business process has found a home in the Notes development arena giving me work and the chance to show what Notes can really do!  I have worked for some companies with as many as 80,000 non-mail databases of which less than 20% were ever supported by a Notes development group!

This feeder base of applications is an important part of the Notes development food chain.  Without these applications many companies may have been able to contemplate a life without Notes (and Notes programmers).

I am not sure if the role of this type of development is fully recognized when the future of Notes is being mapped out.  Few of these "non-programmers" are represented on the various forums such as IdeaJam, Planet Lotus, and IBM's Notes discussion forums. And they probably are not heavily represented at events like LotusSphere.  And they almost ceratinly do not get to be design partners evaluating the latest release of Notes.

With the Notes 8.5 beta having been released I have started to wonder what impact the new development tools and environment may have on Notes "non-programmers".  A full-time developer (especially one who has developed with Java), probably loves the move of Designer to eclipse.  Notes developers who have long struggled with design issues such as joining views or developing Notes/Web client or Web only applications probably love the new capabilities of X-Pages and the extended JavaScript language.  The Notes development world is beginning to look a lot more like Java and ASP.Net development environments.  But are these capabilities going to attract more "non-programmers" or less?  IBM have not yet made public too much about what the Notes development environment will look like post Notes 8.5 but it does seem like eclipse will at least be part of that.  My hope is that in acquiring some of the tools that Java and .Net developers take for granted we do not take the Notes development environment out of reach of the "non-Notes" programmers.  At least not until more companies understand that Notes truly is a strategic platform and it is OK to make it the #1 choice for developing many applications.

One thing that has struck me about  the Notes 8.5 beta is that X-Pages implements JavaScript as the only option for both client-sided and server-sided scripting.  Neither @Language nor LotusScript appear to be supported directly but the "JavaScript" language has been expanded to provide @Formula emulation.  The new server-sided JavaScript now also seems to be able to do some of the things only done in the past using LotusScript...  When X-Pages is made available for the Notes client I am expecting to see support for JavaScript only.  We already have LotusScript able to run on the Notes client and Domino servers, so why is IBM going to so much trouble to extended JavaScript for server-sided scripting?  Could it be that  LotusScript is not part of the long term vision IBM has for Notes development?   As a devoted LotusScript programmer (biggot) I am hoping I am wrong...

 

The next version of Notes (post 8.5) promises to be a very interesting one for Notes developers.  Consider a scenario in which:-

1. X-Pages provides an alternative to Forms, Views, Pages, and Subforms with the added advantages of running on both a Web client and a Notes client, plus the ability to link to non-Notes data sources;
2. X-Pages supports "JavaScript" directly but not LotusScript or @Formula
3. There is little or no future extension of LotusScript language to make it a more modern OOP language;
4. There are few (if any) enhancement made to "old-style "design elements such as Forms, Views, Pages, Subforms, Framesets, Outlines;
5. The Eclipse IDE does not provide native support for these older style design elements  - although we do get the LotusScript editor almost everyone has been waiting for.

It sounds to me like a completely new Notes II programming environment has been created. An environment in which many of the Notes development paradigms of the past have been replaced, including either the death (or significant downsizing) of the role of LotusScript.   Will we have the choice of staying with what we know (e.g. LotusScript & @Formulas) or will we have to move to a new way of doing things (most likely JavaScript based0)?  And where does Java fit with this?  Hopefully IBM will soon provide a clearer picture to the public of its plans for Notes development post Notes 8.0.

 

Perhaps those more in the know than I can comment about where I am completely wrong....  "Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true".

Whilst a native eclipse editor is not yet available in Designer 8.5 for Forms and View it seems that option is provided to edit the DXL for these design elements.  This provides both raw DXL/XML code and a node/property tree for these design elements.  There are times when this can be a distinct advantage over the traditional Domino Designer tool to find and set values (e.g. search and replace".  Not all Design elements are supported (e.g. LotusScript Libraries).

Let me first start by saying I am not a design partner and I do not have any inside contacts at IBM, so I have absolutely no inside information as to what IBM's plans are for the future of Notes programming.  But because I am not subject to any non-disclosure agreements I am free to speculate and say whatever I like. If I start to take a closer look at the tea-leaves now forming at the bottom of my yellow mug I wonder if there may be a pattern forming I had not seen before....

 

I have been taking a much closer look at X-Pages, the new design element  that is part of Notes 8.5.  This design element looks nothing like any other existing Notes design element.  And not just because of the new Eclipse editor.  I see a whole bunch of new controls that remind me more of my time as an ASP.Net developer than they do of Notes development.  I see the ability to bind these controls to data sources that include not just Notes documents and Notes views but also to SQL-databases and XML.  Again, this is not unlike ASP.Net development (except for the ability to natively link to Notes databases).  I also see that as I design an X-Page, it is building XML code which I can not only see but edit directly.... 

 

And when you look at the functionality of X-Pages, they seem to be able to do pretty much everything that many of the existing UI elements of Notes (Forms, Subforms, View, and Pages) can do.  Except that I can now combine them in ways that were never possible with these other design elements.  A number of other bloggers are starting to rave about the really cool stuff they can do using X-Pages.

 

I believe IBM are on record as saying they intend to make X-Pages available for the Notes client in a later release.  So what does that mean?  Unless X-Pages for Notes has a different set of controls that mirror more closely the existing set of controls I am probably going to be soon building new applications for the Notes client in a completely new way.  And thanks to X-pages these applications will look and behave the same on a Web client..  If X-Pages provides the functionality of other design elements such as forms why would I use both in an application?  Perhaps I am not supposed to?  Perhaps in a post Notes 8.5 world I am now supposed to do most of my UI design using ONLY these new design elements such as X-Pages?

 

Perhaps round-tripping of DXL is not an issue for IBM because they  see a future for us developers where we will be able to edit the XML from inside Notes.  Perthaps IBM are not making a major push to develop Eclipse editors for Forms, Pages, and Views because they see these design elements going the way of the Navigator (i.e. no new features added in future releases).  Perhaps there is no need to extend other Notes design elements such as views to support style sheets for the same reason.

 

It is not immediately clear If LotusScript will form a key component of the brave new world.  I am hoping so, because one of the reasons I believe the world has as many Notes applications as it does is that non-programmers (and many programmers) are often better able to teach themselves to program in BASIC-based programming languages much more so than they have ever been able to with Java, C, or JavaScript like languages...

 

The tea-leaves are still swirling around and so the future may show that I am completely wrong.  (But I do hope the dead fly floating at the top is Sharepoint!).  But just in case I am not completely wrong , I would suggest Notes Developers take a very close look at X-Pages - even if you do not do a lot of Web development.  X-Pages (and custom controls) just might provide an insight into how you will be building Notes client and dual client applications in the years to come.  Oh... and read the blogs of those that are design partners.  They may not be able to say a lot just yet... but look at what they don't say!

Having undertaken a review of the Notes 8.5 public beta I have decided that I will not be developing a version of the .domino framework  for the 8.5 release.  My current plans were (and still are) to release 1.0 of the .Domino Framework later this year that is fully supported with Notes 6.0+.  After this initial release I had planned to then jump to Notes 8.5 and start developing functionality specific to this release. 

I find Notes 8.5 to be a major disappointment for Notes client development and see no compelling reason to develop a version of the .Domino Framework for this release.  For one thing there is little or no new features in this release specific to Notes Client functionality.  The design elements such as X-Pages and Custom controls are supported on the Web client only.  Then there is the new eclipse IDE which does a great job for these new design elements but leaves all the existing design elements worse off than before.  (And don't get me started about the absence of an eclipse editor for LotusScript!!!).  So until IBM starts to get fair dinkum with providing something new for Notes client development All post 1.0 releases of the .Domino Framework will be developed for the Notes 8.0 stream.  This includes support for composite applications - something I am quite excited about.  I suspect a lot of people will bypass this release of Notes anyway and wait for the REAL 8.5 release to become available.

It has been a long time since the LotusScript language received any major attention.   The time is rapidly approaching where the language needs a major upgrade to compete with other programming languages such as Java, C#, and VB.Net.  The following is a list of the 20 features that I would most like to see added to LotusScript: (many of which are already posted on IdeaJam)-

1. Allow the extension of product classes such as NotesDocument
2. Provide a construct (similar to .NET LINQ) allowing LotusScript to perform SQL operations such as joins on views.
3. Allow method overloading (defining a single method with multiple options for the parameters - # and type)
4. 100% Fideltity exporting and importing data using DXL.
5. Expand the list of properties exposed by product classes to include all those other properties already available within the C API.
6. Add a Try/Catch construct as an alternative to On Error Goto (with VB.Net it is Try Catch End Try)
7. Allow optional parameters for a method (sub/function)
8. Add "enumerations" (as per .Net) as a construct within a class.  This would allow keywords to be added without necessarily having to assign keywords specific value.
9. Add the ability to serialize a class into text, XML, and/or binary formats.  This would be especially usefull when passing data via a Web Service.
10. Allow field events to be trapped outside the form (e.g. allow an external class to trap when a field value has changed)
11. In addition to Public/Private classes, add the ability to define abstract and sealed classes.
12. Provide greater support for polymophism, including the ability to cast a object from one class to another.
13. Add the ability to define extension methods as a way of adding to/modifying the behviour of classes (as per C# 3.0)
14. Provide a constructor for the NotesDocumentCollection class
15. Add an AllDocuments property to the NotesView returning a NotesDocumentCollection.
16. Extend the NotesUIWorkspace class so that access can be gained to any window presently open on the workspace.
17. Implement interfaces as a way of specifying properties/methods that must exist in a class implementing a specific interface.
18. Add Reflection, in which it is possible to establish if a class has a specific property/method.
19. Devise a simple way to tell if a Rich Text field is empty
20. Add iterators for document collections.  e.g. Forall NotesDocument in NotesVIew or ForAll NotesDocument in NotesDocumentCollection.

IBM did such a great job with Notes 8.0 in improving the overall UI and the Mail database and bridged the gap between Notes and Outlook.  Finally it looked like "we" (IBM and the Notes community) were moving forward again with Lotus Notes.  While I would have loved to have seen a lot more done for developers in 8.0 I can understand IBM's need to focus on bring the Notes client  into the 21st century.  I am not sure if it was just me, but somehow I developed an expectation that the needs of the Notes developer would be the central theme with Notes 8.5.  As a result I was already looking forward to the release of 8.5 even before I got to use 8.0.

Over the weekend I downloaded the first public beta of 8.5 and almost immediately jumped into the new eclipse version of Domino Designer to see what goodies were there for me to use.  There were some obvious signs of a slicker interface as per the Note 8 client.  Useful but not really something I was hanging out for.  I had heard all the talk about what an eclipse IDE would do for things such as LotusScript so the first thing I did was open up a LotusScript library from the .Domino Framework to see what I could now do.  There was a new property box eating up space at the bottom of the screen and.... THAT WAS IT.  The property box did not even provide any useful data.  It just sat there empty consuming space.  Where was the class browser?  Where was typeahead for anything but production classes?  OK so the new IDE is still not there yet, surely there is a swag of other new development features for me to use.

1. X-Pages, these look really cool but I rarely get to do much Web development so this is not a big gain.
2. Server-Sided JavaScript, again great if you do a lot of Web development
3. Themes, works with X-Pages only, which work for Web client only....
   
4. Dojo, another cool Web development tool (A pattern is emerging)
   
5. New LotusScript methods for NotesDocumentCollection GetAllReadDocuments, GetAllUnreadDocuments, Intersection.  Something I guess but I don't recall ever needing methods like this.  Where is the constructor for NotesDocumentCollection?  That would at least be useful!
6. YES , finally an extension to the LotusScript language!  Oh, the ability to set the system date and time.  In 15 years of Notes development I don't recall ever needing to do that. I thought we had operating systems that managed the clock!

So after all the hype and all the wait I get practically NOTHING to help me build Notes Client applications.  It makes me envious of all the Domino Web developers who did at least get something in this release.  I can only hope something new appears before the final 8.5 release because IBM have gone nowhere in bridging the gap between Domino Designer and modern IDEs such as Visual Studio.  Perhaps we are not important in IBM's plans after all.  Which begs the question, why go to all the trouble to revamp the Notes client with 8.0 and then do so little for developers who develop applications that run on that client?