"No IdeaJam is not the issue, just people afraid of Domino applications as they have only been exposed to lousy ones in the past"
Now will XPages really solve the "lousy ones in the past" or will we simply create XPages based apps that still look "lousy". Domino applications can be made to look and work good (/bruce pats matt, gayle and himself on the back).
Yes fanboys, I know what XPages brings to the table but Notes/Domino web developers need to learn more than XPages. Thoughts?
Comment posted by Ed Maloney07/23/2008 02:26:42 PM
The problem of the lousy looking apps could have been solved long ago by giving us a set of css themes (similar to what they've had for years in Quickplace). It appears that we will be getting at least something like this in 8.5x. It is possible to create great looking Domino sites, but it should not be as difficult as it has been.
Comment posted by Bruce07/23/2008 02:32:12 PM
Agreed @Ed however, it's really not that hard to create CSS stuff for Domino. Sample apps are really what are necessary.
Comment posted by Peter Presnell07/23/2008 03:42:36 PM
Homepage: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/dotdomino/
Hey Bruce, I suspect the profile of the "average" Domino Web developer probably has a little more formal software development knowledge/experience than is the case for standard Notes applications. I don't expect to see too many X-Page applications developed by people who don'already have a fair bit of knowledge/experience with HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. I expect that the higher barriers to entry for using Domino Designer 8.5 will therefore mean the quality of Web-based applications developed using X-Pages should be a fair bit better than what you (and I) often see with Notes applications.
(you obviously have just seen my last application with flashing purple text in 36pt Dingbats font on an Orange background!)
Comment posted by Vitor Pereira07/24/2008 02:02:52 AM
Homepage: http://www.vitor-pereira.com
Lousy looking apps will be around forever like in any other platform, unless you make it extremely complex and difficult to get into developing in Domino and scare the lousy developers away. What would you choose?
Comment posted by Simon Scullion07/24/2008 02:58:23 AM
Homepage: http://simonscullion.com
My comment got a little long, so I hid it over here http://www.simonscullion.com/2008/07/24/the-road-back-from-lousy/
Comment posted by Andy Broyles07/24/2008 06:12:42 AM
Homepage: http://andy.the-broyles.com
I agree with management on this issue, but think that it is part and parcel of the history of Notes/Domino. In the begininng, when these managers were new hires, the environment had an extremely low threshold for entry that allowed slightly technology savvy individuals, outside of IT, to be able to build internationally deployable applications that had exposure to populations of potentially thousands of users.
These apps were built to 'get the job done' and not much else...and they weren't designed to 'mature with age' and certainly, due to the lack of UI capabilities, weren't the prettiest apps on the block.
Those managers that used these early years Domino apps are the ones now gun shy of using the platform to build mission critical industrial strength applications in the now much higher level of entry (and capablity) N/D development environment.
There is nothing other than direct experience with quality applications built on the platform that will change how these people think. About the only inroad to change that I can see are the efforts being put into the SAP & N/D interoperablity, but that only touches a very small population of the N/D world.
Comment posted by Ben Dubuc07/24/2008 09:38:28 AM
Homepage: http://www.benoitdubuc.com
I am a freelancer and I've been in many companies. I think the problem that most permanent developers are not interested in learning new things (or just don't have time). Therefore, they keep on doing what they always did, regardless of new technologies and evolution.
A good example: I worked at a company where their "NAB picker" took 30-40 seconds to load, as it was loading every name in the NAB in a Javascript array before displaying something to the end user. I suggested to implement an AJAX NAB picker and I was told that now new technology would be installed on the server... Euh... that showed me exactly where the dev team stood as far as web technologies.
It has been a recurrent problem, as mentioned in an earlier comment, and I think this is mainly due to the fact that a lot of Notes developers are not actually developers. It's a second career or they started playing in Notes and found it easy to do little apps, but when challenged a bit more, problems started.
In my area, there is a fairly large number of companies that made the switch to .Net or Java as they couldn't find properly qualified "real" Notes developers. It's been like that since I started as a freelancer in 1999.
I do agree that the xPages will not make a big difference unless people are trained properly and/or have really good documentation on them. We, as developers, should always have the end user experience in mind. If it looks ugly, or is not very functional, your application might be the best one on the market functionality wise, but people won't buy it, period.
So it's up to us to build better apps. It won't change the fact that there are a lot of "I switched from accounting to Notes development" guys out there. These guys are usually brilliant, so please help them and teach them a few tricks and web sites to help them build better looking apps. Let them know that navigators are totally out these days!!!
Comment posted by Henning Heinz07/24/2008 12:13:22 PM
Do you all think this is a developers problem? I mean if I load the web interface of the current IBM Lotus Document Manager this looks like page design from a decade ago. The default templates with its beautiful never working java applets are a run away reason for every junior web application developer. I mean inexperienced web designers are just half of the truth, the default look of a Domino server is outdated. If you want to design beautiful web applications you have to switch off nearly everything that Domino generates for you. Domino forms often are pass-thru monsters and even more modern products like Quickplace are JavaScript monsters that generate tricky code to bypass the Domino web engine. There are exceptions, the Domino blog tempate for example and things are getting better now. So Domino shops will have an easier life but I still have my doubt that the Domino platform is becoming attractive again to non-domino shops. And from my personal experience companies that moved away from Domino do remember what a painful experience this often has been. Many of those will not come back until the platform has been completely opened.
Comment posted by Axel07/25/2008 05:40:33 AM
The JavaScript monsters are there because at that time it was really hard to develop cross browser guis. Our older web databases look like that, too. Its really the new frameworks (and especially sometimes still a bit slow dojo) that give hope for easier better readable code. But then still there is this learning curve for the framework. Many from the "you-don't-need-to-learn-that" crowd in Domino development won't bother to take that hurdle.
Comment posted by Bob Balaban07/25/2008 02:27:22 PM
Homepage: http://www.bobzblog.com
There are supposed to be major improvements in the 8.5 "regular" Web engine in Domino (more open HTML, CSS support, etc.). I do wish we were hearing/seeing more on that front.
Comment posted by Miguel Calvo07/28/2008 08:08:06 AM
Homepage: http://www.zarazaga.net
Some months ago, there was a thread somewhere about which templates should be included out-of-the-box with Domino.
Getting a really interesting template right there, just by installing the product could make a really good work to advertise Domino developing capabilities. I mean, Xpages put to work, as in the new Discussing template that should ship sometime with Domino 8.5.
On the other hand, a bit of "house cleaning" could be also very interesting. There are templates that haven't changed for a decade. Why not polish them up ? That should be nothing for IBM !
I use OpenNtf, and it's an invaluable resource. But that is not / should not be the first place to look in order to find out what can be done with Domino.
Everything in the Domino box ( that old yellow box ) should shine by itself . I understand that legacy support is important, but let's balance with more modern UIs that are not difficult to get with Domino. 
