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List:       apache-modperl
Subject:    Re: lotus notes
From:       Gunther Birznieks <gunther () extropia ! com>
Date:       1999-05-29 23:28:16
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Lotus Notes SUX.

Just kidding. Well, maybe not.

Basically put, the web interface to lotus notes is a hack. LN was not
designed as a webified language. It was designed as a GUI. Whenever you
slap on a webified something onto a GUI you usually end up cursing the
hacks. I've used LN->Web programs and nearly all of them would have been
way better off being done on the web from scratch. The workflow is just
different.

When you attempt to expand LN you end up having to go through major hoops
to get anything with a semblance of relational activity in it and worse,
doing anything besides the norm is quite painful in its artificial pseudo
language.

LN Web Server is useful for people who have LN apps that need to also
be accessible by the web. But as a web development environment alone from 
scratch?

IMHO, Yuck!!

On Fri, 28 May 1999, Mark Hazen wrote:

> On Fri, 28 May 1999, Francesc Guasch wrote:
> 
> FG> I'd like to hear opinions about lotus notes and the domino server
> FG> as an alternative to modperl for building web sites.
> 
> I've not developed anything major with Lotus Notes, but a great deal with
> mod_perl, including database tools and the like. I've also got a best
> friend who *is* a commercial LN developer, and he and I have discussed
> this thing a number of times. These are my impressions, nothing more...
> so some of you may disagree on some of these points.
> 
> Lotus Notes pros: no compiling or recompiling required, more books written
> about it, commercial support options are easier to find, whole suite of
> tools for (pretty much) point and click application development, pieces
> work well together, looks attractive, nice interface without you having to
> desiogn/deploy the interface.
> 
> Lotus Notes cons: Not easily scalable, NT only, tools work well only with
> one another (not outside standards, without significant futzing), costs
> quite a bit (support, licenses, and software), much much much much slower
> (I've seen single web-linked databases bring servers to their knees), not
> as flexible (i.e. not a 'real language', but an app development suite),
> bug fixes are much slower to evolve, less 'group' knowledge (i.e. this
> mailing list) easily available.
> 
> That being said, if I didn't know Perl already, and I had to develop a
> number of small applications for the web quickly, to be used by a small to
> medium group, and money was not an issue... I'd choose Notes (provided it
> is something Notes is natively capable of). Having built-in web interface
> generation is really, really nice, but it's also a big slowdown... i.e.
> when doing browsing, the native Notes format seems to be the expanding
> tree view... which for large datasets is really unwieldy.
> 
> My only regrets about mod_perl are the compilation needed when versions of
> anything (perl, apache, mod_perl) changes, and yes, the fact that it does
> require a good bit more work to get applications going. For complicated
> sites or applications, though, there's no better tool, IMHO.x
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -mh.
> ----
> 416c6c20  Mark Hazen, Systems Group Coordinator
> 74686174  The Franklin College of Arts & Sciences
> 20666f72  The University of Georgia                 (706) 542-1546
> 206e6f74
> 68696e67  Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a
> 2e0a0000  million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.
> 
> 

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