IBM missing the boat again, I guess just too many committies in IBM. AJAX - http://www.ajaxworldexpo.com - is one of the most valueable technolgies to developers today (yes, tomorrow something else - lol)… Microsoft is seising the day and bulding AJAX widgets and programming directly into their .net tool.
SO, WHY don’t we have the same type of functionality built into DOMINO??? Simple functionality like a dblookup or dbcolumn should be there in the Product so things can be done uniformly for all applications.
IBM should take the lead but instead is working by committe, with others, in Eclipse, thus no native AJAX widgets built into DOmino, which means of course we will have some good apps and some bad apps… Of course this means that MS developers will be able to outgun us on the web side… No thanks to the IBM committees…
Subject: AJAX - IBM Missing the Boat while MS is not!!
Have you noticed that .NET is starting to sag a bit under the weight? While some AJAX native functionality might be good, trying to do everything for people has gotten both Microsoft (see MS Word and a hot of similar products) and IBM (see a long list of semi-forgotten “features” such as the ODBC classes) into trouble before. AJAX can be done fairly easily in Notes/Domino, but I would rather see good examples on codestore.net and openntf.org than built in where they will take up space long after better techniques are discovered and designers are wailing about why IBM still has “2006 technology in 2011” or whatever.
Subject: RE: AJAX - IBM Missing the Boat while MS is not!!
Been there and doing that, but I guess I did not make my point clear.
There should be a set of standard “access methods” and widgets available for standard things that we all do. Just as throught the Notes client. Dblookup, DbColumn, Calendar etc. I know there is also “style” issue.
With it being built into the product everyone can take full advantage right away instead of every developer taking their own “HACK” at it. Domino is a product and should support AJAX, it is important enough…
Subject: RE: AJAX - IBM Missing the Boat while MS is not!!
There are certainly things IBM could do to more easily allow styles, for example, and to provide hooks which would make the insertion of AJAX easier. I just don’t want a “solution” from IBM which would just become obsolete, rather than hooks which would resist the obsolescence better.
Subject: RE: AJAX - IBM Missing the Boat while MS is not!!
In addition to Ben’s post, I’d like to add that there are certainly better things that IBM could be spending their time on with regards to Notes/Domino than building widgets. A change of this type would be built into the Post-Hannover release anyway, perhaps become part of Maureen’s work on the Eclipse based Designer client. However, if IBM spends her valuable time on this, then what do we end up with? More widgets. The same widgets people are building today in many cases, simply integrated into the Designer client. A lot of time, a lot of work, for very little gain. I haven’t been a MS developer in quite some time, and haven’t seen the tools they are providing, but most of the common things you would do with this functionality in Domino already have proven AJAX tools out there… built by members of the development community and tested in most cases in real-world applications. What IBM could, and perhaps should do, is provide, on the developerworks site, an area with links to the more popular/proven/interesting websites for people who are demo-ing and working with AJAX.
Subject: RE: AJAX - IBM Missing the Boat while MS is not!!
I guess I’m not getting through. I’ve seen the sites using backend tools from Sergio and sourceforge… To help domino developers take off quickly there should be a standard set for the Domino developer. These should be cut-n-paste, change the field name/view/ whatever…
Not looking for demo, again, you don’t get my point… From developer to developer each will be very different. Some good some bad…
In the Domino world we have a handful of developers compared to MS and other solutions. To be in a RAD design, there needs to be some level of WEB widges to start with. Not something we have to buy and alter (e.g. sarissa).
Subject: RE: AJAX - IBM Missing the Boat while MS is not!!
No, your not getting through. I know AJAX has really been taking off lately but people said that about websphere and javabeans and servlets. Its the flavor of the year, just like J2EE / Java was 8-10 years ago (geez, I’m getting old).
What about XML/XSL(NotesXMLProcessor class), it was somewhat integrated with domino in 6x and it really has not peronally saved me much time from a development standpoint. Still building it natively.
Why should IBM spend the time building these if they will be obsolete in a few years - before AJAX, there were other tools that IBM did not bring into domino and for good reason.
I agree with everyone elses postings - good points Ben!
It’s just what they do. Even if they have never thought of building new widgets, they announce a launch date as soon as they think it might be useful to acquire a little company that already makes the tools. It’s part of their strategy, as it keeps many players off the field (who wants to go up against Goliath?)
If IBM does create the widgets, we have to spend time learning ADJAX (Asynchronous Domino, Javascript and XML) instead of AJAX, which wouldn’t necessarily apply to any platform except Domino. I would prefer more tools, but I don’t need IBM to be the one that provides them…