4 ms·

> though soon overshadowed by the new hotness that was Lotus Notes. The fun thing about that statement is I have no idea whether it was sarcastic or heartfelt.

> though soon overshadowed by the new hotness that was Lotus Notes. The fun thing about that statement is I have no idea whether it was sarcastic or heartfelt. I have never found a more polarizing piece of software in my long career. It’s a love or hate there and doesn’t seem to be any “meh” opinion. (I was in the hate camp and thankfully my life has been Notes free for over 15 years)

beachy 4y ago
I feel Notes was a lot like 123. Immensely flexible and you could build anything in it. But the end results were a hairball that you'd never want dropped in your lap to maintain.
- kcplate 4y ago
  I hated notes but loved 123, I was even one of those weird slash key users of excel after we did the big MS switch for a whole lot longer than I should have been.
chiph 4y ago
Ray Ozzie shows up here occasionally. I disparaged Notes a while back and he set me straight - the backend is pretty elegant. However the front end was designed to be cross-platform and as a result is a lowest common denominator UI. It's not attractive, but it worked nearly everywhere. Since that is what people see, that's the impression they get. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18320592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18320592
- kcplate 4y ago
  I’ll admit to just being a front end user of the platform only so I am sure it framed my opinion—the UX was dreadful. The other thing that set the bad taste it was brought in as the corporate email platform by a company that acquired us and since I lead IT for our org (now a division) and corporate IT was across country and 3 hours behind, we caught the brunt of all the user complaints and support for the first half of the day until the help desk opened up.
- methods21 3y ago
  Lotus Notes is criminally underrated. I don't think folks gave credit to the replication engine. I was so stoked when Ray O was going to MS and thought he'd just kill it there, and I prayed bring Lotus like replication to sharepoint. I was not a huge notes fan early on as the UI was off-putting (I didn't know the UI was written to be cross platform - now it makes sense). But the functionality it provided and the millions of notes DBs written, is truly amazing and it has a huge place of respect in my book. Ray is tops in my book.
JoshTriplett 4y ago
The best description of Lotus Notes I ever heard was "It's like using Microsoft Access with VBA as your email client and calendar". (Plus random forms and "applications" that should have been on the web instead.)
- acomjean 4y ago
  I built notes database applications a while back in may career. It’s kinda a no sql data store with clunky front end (cross platform as mentioned elsewhere) and lotus script. After working in it for a while I’d start to notice the Notes email and calendar are just specialized notes applications. It’s not the best..
- pavlov 4y ago
  Notes preceded the web by many years.
  - ochrist 4y ago
    At some point in time there was something called Domino (or more precisely Lotus Domino Server). Basically it was a server for Lotus Notes solutions. You could flick a switch, and then you turned your Notes-based solutions into web-applications. It seems it still exists in some form: https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/hcl_domino_12_debuts/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/hcl_domino_12_debuts/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Domino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Domino
- ngcc_hk 4y ago
  You were retrofit your idea back to one of the integrated idea sharing platform, with security, ease of programming (by user and not IT guys like us) … I still do not see any close to it thing even today.

beachy 4y ago

I feel Notes was a lot like 123. Immensely flexible and you could build anything in it. But the end results were a hairball that you'd never want dropped in your lap to maintain.

kcplate 4y ago
I hated notes but loved 123, I was even one of those weird slash key users of excel after we did the big MS switch for a whole lot longer than I should have been.

chiph 4y ago

Ray Ozzie shows up here occasionally. I disparaged Notes a while back and he set me straight - the backend is pretty elegant. However the front end was designed to be cross-platform and as a result is a lowest common denominator UI. It's not attractive, but it worked nearly everywhere. Since that is what people see, that's the impression they get. Found it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18320592 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18320592

kcplate 4y ago
I’ll admit to just being a front end user of the platform only so I am sure it framed my opinion—the UX was dreadful. The other thing that set the bad taste it was brought in as the corporate email platform by a company that acquired us and since I lead IT for our org (now a division) and corporate IT was across country and 3 hours behind, we caught the brunt of all the user complaints and support for the first half of the day until the help desk opened up.
methods21 3y ago
Lotus Notes is criminally underrated. I don't think folks gave credit to the replication engine. I was so stoked when Ray O was going to MS and thought he'd just kill it there, and I prayed bring Lotus like replication to sharepoint. I was not a huge notes fan early on as the UI was off-putting (I didn't know the UI was written to be cross platform - now it makes sense). But the functionality it provided and the millions of notes DBs written, is truly amazing and it has a huge place of respect in my book. Ray is tops in my book.

JoshTriplett 4y ago

The best description of Lotus Notes I ever heard was "It's like using Microsoft Access with VBA as your email client and calendar". (Plus random forms and "applications" that should have been on the web instead.)

acomjean 4y ago
I built notes database applications a while back in may career. It’s kinda a no sql data store with clunky front end (cross platform as mentioned elsewhere) and lotus script. After working in it for a while I’d start to notice the Notes email and calendar are just specialized notes applications. It’s not the best..
pavlov 4y ago
Notes preceded the web by many years.
- ochrist 4y ago
  At some point in time there was something called Domino (or more precisely Lotus Domino Server). Basically it was a server for Lotus Notes solutions. You could flick a switch, and then you turned your Notes-based solutions into web-applications. It seems it still exists in some form: https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/hcl_domino_12_debuts/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/hcl_domino_12_debuts/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Domino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCL_Domino
ngcc_hk 4y ago
You were retrofit your idea back to one of the integrated idea sharing platform, with security, ease of programming (by user and not IT guys like us) … I still do not see any close to it thing even today.