A few weeks ago I posted a blog about the Domino2025 Ideas portal, including my first idea. There is a lot of synergy and most are not “quick wins” but aimed at being “big wins”. They’re aimed at looking at that longer term approach to all developers and users. A few years ago XPages was the preferred approach of many, before that Composite Applications (remember those?) had some popularity and beneficial use cases. But things change as technology changes so JavaScript and Notes Client development have had a resurgence. Even now Java development still has a place for Domino too. And through all time, administration of Domino servers has always been and will always continue to be a requirement. For users, the Eclipse client, HCL Nomad and ICAA all have a part to play. It’s a complex landscape and, as my previous blog post covered, focusing on one in isolation will result in a disjointed experience and may not address future requirements as our roles inevitably evolve. It’s important to step back from a current role or a current customer and think about the platform.
Having said that, it’s already evident in Domino V10 that the focus is not on a particular type of developer. DQL is coded at the C++ layer, so is accessible to all languages. Similarly from all I’ve heard gRPC benefits should be possible from Java as well as the dominoDB npm module.
Typically with my ideas, they’ve had a lot of thought. I often spend 30 minutes or more writing the idea, because I’m thinking of structure, justification, benefit for all types of application, all clients etc. I’m not going to comment on the quality of individual ideas I’ve seen, but to be brutally frank some demonstrate zero effort and must have taken less than a minute to input. Even when they adequately describe a requirement, they address a single use case as if Notes and Domino can only be used for a single specific need. If it were possible to down-vote ideas, there are more than a few that deserve it.
So here are the list of ideas I’ve posted so far. I won’t go into detail on them, that’s done in the ideas themselves.
Phishing button in Verse / Notes Client – yes this can be added, but the fewer customisation of the mail file, the more chance of customers upgrading regularly.
Document Properties as an API not a Notes Client function – DevOps should be flexible.
DQL in search bar – I’m sure what we’re seeing with DQL in V10 is just the start and it addresses many programmatic needs, but it would be great to modernise the client searching UX.
Source control issues – this is nothing new and there have been workarounds for XPages thanks to Swiper. It’s not likely to be an issue for JS dev, but Nomad makes Notes Client more relevant and a standard approach is best.
Looser coupling of Notes Client design and UI – XPages has made flexibility easier, it’s time to learn from that for the Notes Client / Nomad. Yes, this is very ambitious and challenging, it may be unachievable. But it qualifies as a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).
Designer Clients – Java developers will prefer Eclipse or IntelliJ, JavaScript developers will prefer VS Code or Atom. We need to respect that if we want to entice them to the platform, but it’s important to realise they won’t need everything that’s in DDE.
API-driven Administrator Client – I’m not an administrator, but thatt’s no reason my ideas should not include admins. If admin functions are API first, with appropriate security, this opens a lot of opportunities.
Review of libraries for XPages / DOTS – I know IBM / HCL have not forgotten XPages developers. There are a lot of libraries that make things easier, for XPages and DOTS (not that I’ve used that).
Wizard to create GraphQL schema – REST is good, but why make five requests to Domino when you can make one? This is the power of GraphQL and a wizard can make it easier to build / deploy.
Replace LEI with Node-RED – I’m a huge fan of Node-RED. Adding all the third-party integration that is built for Node-RED into LEI is unachievable. Yes, there are licensing and revenue implications. But there are definite benefits.
Review Java security policy – this would be of benefit to XPages and Java developers.