Portaldomosphere

 Yes - I used to HATE Websphere - and to some extent Portal. And I wondered today - why did I not like these products? (And you are asking why I ask myself question like this on the weekend) The more I thought about this, I came up with many answers.

My first answer came from the marketing that IBM and Lotus subjected us to from some years back. I think the biggest fears about Websphere taking over the Domino arena came with Workplace. Workplace was seen and marketed as the next big thing. Since Lotus was pushing this and just coasting around with Lotus Notes the community felt very much like I did - rejected. We have made Lotus Notes our friend and now the rules were completely changing. Luckily for us, the focus turned back on Lotus Notes. (And lucky for us that Workplace took so long to set up and configure that is was basically not worth the effort to mess with)

My second answer - I LOVE Lotus Notes. I am a yellow-bleeder for sure. I know this down in my heart that this software is like the perfect canvas for me to create something wonderful. So the thought of letting go of that turned my stomach and angered me. How dare they change everything I have been doing...

But the real reason - well, I did not know nor understand or really want to know anything about the Websphere brand. Even in all the training and early working with Websphere products - I still got a bad feeling about it. But in all of this I realized that IBM/Lotus did itself a horrible disjustice. The main reason is that Domino products and Websphere products are completely different. I mean this on all levels. Neither could do the others job - and I mean this in total. Totally from technical to the type of customer who would purchase each for each reason.

So - for all of you who felt this way before - have an open mind and try not to get caught up in the bad feeling you had before.

Ok, so I am trucking along getting this project done and all of a sudden, Portlet Factory (well eclipse) comes back and tells me I have too many 

Main Actions. WHAT??!?!

Well, after looking for a short period of time, I see that some bozo has shoved this VERY IMPORTANT checkbox under the "Advanced" section of the builder. This is usually a collapsed section where you put stuff like localization settings and profiling stuff.

By the way - for those of you who are not getting this... quick explanation. Portlet Factory uses modules called "models". These models usualyl contain elements that handle one type of portlet or maybe one web service with multiple methods. The problem is, you can only have ONE main method, after that you get errors basically. Somewhat like if you could tell Domino to have multiple default forms and someone opens a database and Notes is confused by it.

Ok thanks - that is my irritation for the day.