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The interesting thing about Lotus Notes is that it started out as something that wasn't that far from Engelbart's vision of a collaborative UI. Unfortunately, i

The interesting thing about Lotus Notes is that it started out as something that wasn't that far from Engelbart's vision of a collaborative UI. Unfortunately, it ended up being predominantly used as a makeshift email client but it had a lot of potential.

m_mueller 8y ago
Yes, I agree. Its core is quite powerful - like a way more powerful version of MS Access from back in the 80s. The problem is how it has been marketed and in what corner it has been pushed technologically. CouchDB/Couchbase is an interesting spiritual successor, but it misses a powerful application framework surrounding it (actually something we are working on).
- 0x445442 8y ago
  Yeah, it's interesting that more dev folks don't know Notes as a powerful NoSQL technology but just as a crappy email client. Also, not widely known; Domino server was/is really good at clustering and data replication.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    From a sysadmin and CIO viewpoint, Notes/Domino is a dream - because it's built for 80s servers, it's insanely cheap to run for large organisations (as long as you get user acceptance). I'd say the main thing people are missing though: Local replicas. Once you replicate the important DBs locally it's very responsive to work with, i.e. documents load without any delay. It just pains me that they never really modernised it. Should have switched to Couchbase, add their powerful permissions model, use continuous replication and a seamless switch to offline replica where already available, put a modern UI in front (but still with a drag-and-droppable designer) and bam - you have a programmable Evernotes on steroids.
- scrumper 8y ago
  Do you mean that you are working on Notes-like app frameworks at Couchbase? That's enormously interesting.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    Not at Couchbase but with Couchbase (mobile): https://protogrid.com https://protogrid.com
    - scrumper 8y ago
      Thanks, will take a look.
DonHopkins 8y ago
"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." - "Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment," Commonly attributed to jwz, but "I didn't make that up".
- icc97 8y ago
  Combined with Atwood's Law [0]: > any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript. So a Gmail clone is the end of the line for all applications. [0]: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/the-principle-of-least-power.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/the-principle-of-le...

m_mueller 8y ago

Yes, I agree. Its core is quite powerful - like a way more powerful version of MS Access from back in the 80s. The problem is how it has been marketed and in what corner it has been pushed technologically. CouchDB/Couchbase is an interesting spiritual successor, but it misses a powerful application framework surrounding it (actually something we are working on).

0x445442 8y ago
Yeah, it's interesting that more dev folks don't know Notes as a powerful NoSQL technology but just as a crappy email client. Also, not widely known; Domino server was/is really good at clustering and data replication.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  From a sysadmin and CIO viewpoint, Notes/Domino is a dream - because it's built for 80s servers, it's insanely cheap to run for large organisations (as long as you get user acceptance). I'd say the main thing people are missing though: Local replicas. Once you replicate the important DBs locally it's very responsive to work with, i.e. documents load without any delay. It just pains me that they never really modernised it. Should have switched to Couchbase, add their powerful permissions model, use continuous replication and a seamless switch to offline replica where already available, put a modern UI in front (but still with a drag-and-droppable designer) and bam - you have a programmable Evernotes on steroids.
scrumper 8y ago
Do you mean that you are working on Notes-like app frameworks at Couchbase? That's enormously interesting.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  Not at Couchbase but with Couchbase (mobile): https://protogrid.com https://protogrid.com
  - scrumper 8y ago
    Thanks, will take a look.

DonHopkins 8y ago

"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." - "Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment," Commonly attributed to jwz, but "I didn't make that up".

icc97 8y ago
Combined with Atwood's Law [0]: > any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript. So a Gmail clone is the end of the line for all applications. [0]: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/the-principle-of-least-power.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/07/the-principle-of-le...