From Domino to Infinity
Never one to shy away from a little controversy, I just have to pass this link on to you. Stephan H. Wissel has started a new blog and invited me to be a guest author. The blog is called From Domino To Infinity and aims to help people move away from Domino to other platforms. Controversial or what!?
As it says on the site, there may soon be a demand for the skills needed to make the transition. Not sure whether I will take up the offer of being a guest author yet. Would love to, but time is in short supply at the moment. Would like some of the work that comes from it though ;o) At the moment I am working on a site using PHP/MySQL and Smarty. Enlightening to say the least.
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And I thought April fools was tommorrow when you can check out my new site - exchangeisdead.com - with guest articles from Ray Ozzie and Bill Gates
A Domino web site dedicated to the proposition that Domino is dead!? This Singapore web site looks more like an advertising vehicle than a serious resource. It is rife with spelling errors. The "downloads" section is empty and produces an error message. What else is there other than advertisements?
I wouldn't get involved with this.
--David
The way Domino is now, all the web technologies are already playing a part. It's become a (fairly stable) meeting point for the whole gamut. Java, XML, Cuddly Toy...
Surely, now the non-domino bits are more valued skills than LotusScript and Formula language, does the meeting point matter? Domino is just another tool for the job.
As long as we learn how to mitigate against the domino rendering quirks etc. then the job these days is more to do with non-domino issues.
Surely that's good in a way - it means we can take the foundation for granted as being stable?
Marketing wise it has to evolve. Eventually it will become something else. It has to.
As confucious say:
"The reed that does not bend in the wind will break."
Or something.
- "We see there is a demand for this transition and we want the consulting job."
Why not build a blog using PHP/mySQL or ASP.Net ? A little strange me thinks.
I would hazard a guess the motivation is less to do with the perception that Notes is dead and more to do with the sense that the talent pool is saturated. Maybe that's just me. I was looking at a job here in our small corner of the world and guess what... there were 14 other submissions. And when I reviewed resumes for folks to replace me? There were 14 other candidates. It's like there's 15 of us doing Notes in town and about one open slot.
Anyone who takes advantage of every opportunity to learn something new, even synergistically, is going to do themselves a huge favor. So I'm largely in agreement with James J but I support the idea of helping folks that want to transition to something new, for whatever reason (maybe they're burnt out on Notes?).
Jerry
Having said that, I don't think the tone of that blog is particularily nobel. The logo itself is a little insulting and leads me to believe the creator is more of the mind to profit from encouraging transition rather than being there to help developers expand their skill sets. Maybe you can salvage / redirect the effort, Jake.
I find it strange that Nathan Freeman is listed as a "contributor". Weird.
Reading Jerry's comment about the apparent ratio of developers to vacancies is quite depressing. I don't think IBM have seen what their strategy of promoting Websphere over Domino has meant for Domino developers.
A small company I know is forking out a further (yes, I mean further) £80,000 for an upgrade to Websphere server licensing, and refusing to move to R6 on the desktop because they are now over-budget. This is despite the fact that IMO they have no real need for Websphere. However, all the staff are using Notes email and Notes apps daily, and could clearly benefit from using ND6. IBM is making no more money from this company - the company are just re-prioritising their expenditure, and I believe their move to Websphere is a drain on their resources and will ultimately lead to decreased profitability. They have been spending years (literally) writing quite a simple portal application that could have been done in Domino for a fraction of the time and the cost.
If more and more of the Domino developers who are chasing the few vacancies decide to follow the example of this guy in Singapore, IBM might really have shot themselves in the foot. Imagine if those disgruntled developers took their Domino skills and started recommending and faciliting companies moving to PHP or ASP.NET instead of Websphere. It is not hard to track down ".nsf" sites, and start marketing to them directly. I don't believe that most Domino developers are as passionate and committed to it as a platform in the way that the proliferation of Domino bloggers would lead us to believe. And even if developers have had a long history of commitment to Domino (as Jake, for example), if there are no jobs for them in developing for Domino they are going to have to do what they can to survive.
This anlysis has had quite a bit of discussion on various sites over the last few days (although strangely, I haven't seen anyone else referring to it in any Domino discussions):
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Y'know... I started writing a reply to this entry - partially a response to this blog and to Mike's blog over at notestips (you guys talk to each other this morning or something?!?)
I'm not going to bash anyone here... but take this into consideration:
Since we're not really getting the marketing support from the vendor (I can't tell you when I last saw an advertisement for Domino/Lotus Notes that wasn't already IN a Domino/Lotus Notes-based publishing), it's really up to us - the Dominoids.
In Bernard's example... why not simply develop the portal that they were looking for FOR them as an example of what could be done with the product? Show them and offer the template at a "reduced rate" from what you currently bill - get'em hooked and show them that they already have the technology that's needed to get the job done and get it done (to boot) at a fraction of the cost/time. Simply put, you're keeping Domino seats at a Domino shop while giving yourself a re-occurring revenue stream.
The problem is though, most of us won't do this. We'd rather sit back and complain that Websphere, or Sharepoint, or some wannabe developer who read that mySQL/PHP is the best thing in the world after he checked out the latest article on slashdot is trying to invade *our* turf.
To quote Jack from "A Few Good Men":
"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it. I prefer you said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand to post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."
If you're kicking ass, taking names and showing the CIOs, IT Managers and User community that Domino is an invaluable tool AND constantly integrating this tool with new and exciting things... then I doubt anyone's gonna start looking for different solution.
Last item... don't be an ostrich about new technologies - get them under your belt if for nothing other than something to integrate into your Domino development practices. You can also look to the way another product, etc actually does something and try to adopt that in Domino - it's more than likely very possible and certainly makes you a better developer than those in the over saturated markets that simply read the Help file and the whitepapers that Lotus/IBM publish.
Sorry for the long-winded entry there Jake!
-Chris
Chris,
I was trying to just detail the most relevant points, but you are forcing my hand ;-)
I was actually an employee at that company, and struggled inside to get them to keep considering Domino, but there was a team of "real" developers who kept insisting that Domino was a toy. That team had control of Oracle, and our proposals 3 years ago to do prototypes with Domino were prevented by them making all sorts of Oracle development/admin objections to what we would need. (I found out this week, that for their Websphere project they are now making the kinds of changes we requested to the structure of Oracle database.) The Domino developers were put under the management of the anti-Domino developers, and were increasingly marginalised. At the same time, IBM was dropping the ball with Domino and it looked like it was being supplanted/replaced by Websphere in the IBM stable. That just gave them more ammunition. After battling with them for several years I gave up, and resigned, after being told I was not even allowed to speak about Domino any more. I tried to work on Websphere for 2 years as required by my managers, but I could see how inefficient and expensive it was going to be. It was soul-destroying to struggle with WSAD and Java and Struts - with no training and no outside consultation, knowing that it would all be much easier in Domino.
I know that Domino is one of the best technologies for web development that there is. I started my own business developing a Domino based web app for which I will sell subscriptions.
I have loads of ideas for other applications, so I'm quite hopeful of being able to at least employ Domino developers myself.
Wow!
My little work in progress on fromDomino sparked quite some comments. Sorry for the work in progress (Download now doesn't error, but still content to come) and the typos (I'm not a native English speaker). A lot of the decissions made are VERY concious: Using Domino as the platform -> we think it is a good one
Calling it fromDomino -> We want to look at the starting point and what is needed to get going and when it makes sense going.
We want to give a realistic picture, not the sales talk of the tool vendors. For my own organisation: we will move "out" of Domino only so far, that we blend it with J2EE, but not abandon it!
You are very welcome to share your insights, war time stories etc. I will happily post them as contributions.
Finally: You might want to Google for "paradox intervention"
;-) stw
Many good points brought up here, however it isn't only Domino developers singing the blues. I don't know ANY programmers (Java, Oracle, Cold Fusion, Visual Studio included) who are finding decent employment these days. IBM isn't helping our cause with the Workplace message either.
My two cents...
Bernard,
I am VERY sorry to hear that... because I can empathize. While the Dominoids are open to new technologies and feel confident in their product, I am constantly running into people who are so scared that their respective technology skillset will be threatened that they whisper in the ear of the decision makers. What always got me - I'm normally too busy producing products that work to sit and gab with the CIO/IT managers. Sadly though, most of these decision makers would rather have a buddy in the naysayer than actually look at the product and say "y'know... this works".
A former employer was a perfect example:
A certain person on the team that was fairly good at what he did, but KNEW he/she was the greatest at everything (a "well, I didn't do it so it's crap"-type of person) became really fast friends with the main decision maker... most of the time joking at Domino or my personal expense. Things such as redirecting all of my web proxy traffic via a firewall rule called "BadToohey" to either the M$ Exchange main portal or several different "Notes sucks!" sites out there were commonplace, and when reported to managers, employers, and HR all was quickly hushed or laughed at. Additional professional attacks were then followed by personal attacks - attempts to crash my website (yeah right) to registering a like domain name, copying all of my content save adding a few slanderous comments that I was avoiding management by sleeping under my desk or in the server room after my 3+ hour lunch.
I'm in a MUCH better place now... and have learned a great deal from those experiences. The biggest, by far, is that some techies that aren't confident in their abilities or their technologies might just try to knock down those of us who are.
That lot being said, I really am sorry to hear that you were phased out of the deal like that, and sorry that my original comment may have come across in a "get off *YOUR* ass" manner.
Ok, I better end this before I hit the byte-limit on this field ;-)
-Chris
Chris, I didn't take your comments in a disparaging way. The place you were in is far worse than the place where I was.
They were not bad people, but they were entrenched in their ignorance and scared to not follow the 'enterprise grade' path - the real irony is that they would actually qualify as a 'small business' in terms of Domino Express licensing. I know I did my utmost, but when one is forbidden to question what is being done, there is no way forward. My estimation is that their subsequent spending on Websphere (tools, consultancy, servers) must be approaching ■200,000 by now, and I'm not sure if the project has even gone live yet. (You would not believe the triviality of the application they are developing for such vast expenditure.)
Life is too short to be shackled to less enabling technologies :-)
Bernard
One gig I had was to tidy up an intranet which had cost them (so far) ■4M. It was a noble project, but was canned 6 months after going live for something with a different "Look and Feel". It was a bank, who apparently were making >■1M a day profit, so to them it was peanuts.