Am I Still A Domino Developer?
It's been well over a year since I last created a new Notes database. While I've tweaked a few Domino apps here and there in the mean time it's probably about 18 months since I did any real work with Domino.
Domino-based work represents about 10% of my turnover over the last year and Domino Designer rarely sees the light of day other than when I'm in "support mode".
Contrast this with a period up until about 3 years ago when Domino was pretty much all I ever did. I messed with other platforms for fun, but Domino was my bread and butter. How times have changed.
Yesterday I Tweeted:
Just had a "Dear John" phone call with my longest-standing and best customer. I no longer have *any* Domino customers.
It's a little sensationalised for effect, as there'll be maintenance work with them for a while and consultancy work in helping them migrate away from what I built, but, in the long term there's, no work there.
That tweet came less than 3 weeks after this one:
Just found out another of my long-term customers are ditching Domino and, hence, me.
They're dropping like flies. This year I've lost all of my long-standing customers. In all cases primarily because they're ditching Domino. Either that or there's something they're not telling me, but I think it's a clear case of Domino being on its way out.
Losing a good customer is never nice. Yesterday's phone call was actually quite upsetting, even though I've seen it coming for a while now. On the flip side though I can't help but see the positives in it. It gives me chance to start afresh.
For ages now I've been telling myself I should learn XPages so I'm better equipped to battle it out in the Notes work space. But, come on, is it really worth it? Would learning XPages really get me any work and secure my future?
I think the point has come where I need to stop thinking of myself as a Domino Developer and look to an alternate path for my future as a developer.
That future could well be bright. I'm just not so sure it's very yellow*.
If things continue at this rate I'd say that, in a year's time, I will be no longer using Lotus Domino at all.
* Hey, if you want any Domino work doing, then you know where I am. I'm not saying I won't do Domino work. I'll do any work at all. It's just that there doesn't appear to be any Domino work about.
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Hi Jake
I'm so sorry about this to you. You are a great developer and inspiration for a lot of blog-reading people like me. I heard it coming, I went through the Domino rejection phase for a lot of the companies I work for, but it's been even worse since most did not offer a replacement platform (they went for the "get this SAP or standard Sharepoint TeamRoom app or go back to your Excel mode", you know what I mean. Going back to 1980's IT, where IT was so fragmented you couldn't even bother. Now the IT is goin' through that phase).
MS people injected their Exchange+Sharepoint , just for the sake of keeping the user away from the IT. The expenses has raised so much that , just to give u an example, it's 2.5 years a Notes db I did in 2005 should have been shut down. After 3 Sharepoint analysis , always rejected because of missing implementations and functions, we get through the usual January message "budget is not enough to migrate. you'll have to keep it as it is, freezed, for the rest of the year"
Domino was about rapid application development. Sharepoint is not for sure.
I slowly expanded my vision to incorporate iOS app dev (and OS X as well, since a lot of people was focused only to Windows), and as a web platform I picked Ruby on Rails. I am still in learning mode (and will be for a lot of time coming), customers are not here yet, but I better move this year, I don't want to be stuck on Sharepoint and be told "your budget has already been spent" on January....
Wish you the best
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Thanks Luke.
My web platform of "choice" is currently ASP.NET which I have to say I'm thoroughly enjoying.
However, like you, iOS app dev is on my radar. As business owners you've got to look ahead and have a five year plan. Mobile app development is massive now. Just imagine how massive it will be in the future!
A customer asked me last week "Can you do apple development yet?" to which I answered "Yes, I'm a Registered Apple Developer" - how are they to know that means nothing more than that I've paid my $99 to join ;-)
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I feel for you. I'm also not really doing much Domino development these days. Aside from some Notes plugin work, which is really Eclipse plugin work with some minor Notes integration (a possibly more fertile ground than pure Notes dev) I'm pretty much Java full time. If you're gonna do XPages, why not take the leap into JSP dev already? You get a free stack with most of the same programming conventions and a far greater customer base. Hint: check out Spring. I understand you're very much in the .Net camp these days, which is also a fertile field. Best of luck to you and please keep posting the good stuff.
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Ah, the proverbial cross-roads. Seems like I've been this way too many times to count. For me at least, it seems I keep coming back to the intersection of Domino and "work that pays".
I keep looking back at my strategy over the past 10 years and find I agree with your direction. Learn all you can, add tools to the box, take whatever work you can get. Fun and profit follow.
No Jake, you are not merely a Domino developer, nor are a good many and growing number of us. We're technologists. We are well versed in the mind numbing ways of functions and protocols. Ports and heaps are not mysteries to us where they may be for a good number of those who view themselves as *only* Domino developers.
It's a bit like when we were kids. We had two real options for toy cars here in the States; Matchbox and Hot Wheels. Some of us boys were Hot Wheels only men. Some swore by Matchbox. A good number took whatever their Grandpa and Uncle or Dad gave them and smiled. But there was also Libby, Tyco, Tonka and Ertle for those of us who had learned to keep our horizons broad. And to us, legion of entertaining options were to be had. Pride and joy were in ownership, not brand.
Would any of us stand on one brand alone for the principle of it, we'd do so to spite ourselves as our joy would be lessened with our options.
Keep the tools clean and polished, Jake, and take what may come with a smile.
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Jerry, you said it all too well.
Jake, I wish you the best because you deserve it. All of us did our part for making Domino great, but other forces felt otherwise.
On a more positive note; if you are thinking about mobile development, you may want to look into the Mono Project since it will allow your knowledge of the .NET framework to translate onto many more platforms than Windows.
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page
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Thanks Jeff.
Late I know, but sorry I never got round to posting your "ASP.NET for Domino Developer" series you offered to share on this site.
Ironically (or not? I never have worked out what irony is) I'm planning my own series of ASP.NET starter guides soon.
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Yes and No.
Yes Jake, you are still a Domino 8.0 developer.
You have never embrassed ( or tried ) Domino 8.5.x so you are not a Domino 8.5.x developer.
Sorry to be harsh. Sean
p.s there is still plenty of mileage in Notes client development without XPages ( actually XPages is not yet usuable in the client in my opinion ) but Domino is a different matter.
p.p.s Your still a great developer though and if I ever need skills that match your skill set you will always be up near the top of the list of people to talk to.
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That's not harsh, Sean. Just the facts. Don't worry about it.
So, once a Domino developer, always a Domino developer. Is that what you're saying? Even if you've not used (the version you stuck at) in over a year?
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I wonder if it's worth it to have a chat with Ed Brill one of these days? He seems to think that license sales in the UK and Ireland are doing quite well. Maybe it's less about whether people are using it or not, and more about getting connected to the right people who will have work for you? Just a thought.
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Networking more was one of new year's resolutions. Whether Ed Brill would the right person to talk to or not, I don't know. I don't think I'm his favourite person.
The point I failed to make in the blog was that I think the time's come where I need to stop thinking of Domino as being a viable way to make a living and, as others have said, move on.
I'm registered for UKLUG this year. While I'm there I'll make it clear to anybody who'll listen that I'm available to work on anything at all.
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IBM may be winning a few battles, but the war is going to Microsoft. My small company (3000 users) migrated to Exchange this year, and is embracing all MS workflow options being offered (including spreadsheets) over Domino, and it's being driven from the top. MS has convinced them they are saving money by using their products.
When IBM heard the company was dropping Notes Mail, did they send someone to ask why? Nope, the asked for a license audit. Makes Domino evangelism a tough sell.
I'm missing LS this year as well - first one in 10 years. No funds for training for what is being considered a dying platform.
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Hi Jake
No, you are not a Domino developer any more. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you can focus your energy on ASP.NET or whatever.
I just closed my Domino consultancy firm, due to lack of projects. The costumers got bought, merged or had new IT managers or Marketing managers. All choose other platforms for their websites/apps.
After 3 months of unemployment, I start as an employee, doing Ruby on Rails development. Even though I am sad to see my company fold, I am excited to move on.
Thanks, for being a highlight in the Domino community - now move on - Focus!
Best wishes
Bo Frederiksen
P.S. There seem to be only one way for Lotus Notes in job trends:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=lotus+notes%2Crails%2Cphp%2Cc%23%2Casp&l=
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Hi Bo,
Sorry to hear about your company folding. It's still a possibility the same might happen to "Rockall Design". It's been a tough year. My accountant used the word "insolvent" a while back and that made me sit up and listen. Things might be picking up a little now, but the fight (to keep the company, lifestyle and working from home) is far from over.
You're right though. I need to move on.
Jake
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It's bad to hear that you don't get work in the Domino world in the UK anymore. Since I'm not living in the UK, I don't have any opinion about that.
All I can say is that in Germany, there IS work for Domino developers. Work for classic Notes development is going downwards, but work for XPages apps is clearly going upwards - at least for us (that is, me and my collegues in my company).
For example we have one new customer how wants to get all of his classic notes apps converted into web based XPages apps - we are talking about hundres of apps here.
There are a lot of companies having developers who speak Notes only yet, but they see that it's neccessary to learn XPages, JavaScript, HTML and CSS - and they are coming to us to ask for training and consulting.
So for you XPages seem to be the wrong way, and if you can make money with ASP.NET and other stuff, do it. In the end, they are all tools to solve business problems. Nothing more. It's vital that a developer is able to understand problems and solve them with the tools he has, if they come from Lotus, Microsoft or someone else does not matter at all.
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I'm certified in Domino 7 application development and that's where I've drawn the line. I've no interest in learning x-pages, from what I know of them I don't really see a massive amount of benefit from using them anyway. Somone asked me if I knew anything about DAOS the other day, aparently it's something todo with storing file attachments on the file system, new in 8.5.
I'll always be able to pick up Domino if needed in the future, but my focus is Sharepoint 2010 on top of my classic ASP.NET day job. I think it's always important to have a plan for your career to make sure you have options and things that make you stand out from the crowd, I like to think that my Domino past contributes to that as a collaboration developer.
Ian.
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Learning XPages makes a LOT of sense if other parts of your job involves Java / JEE : there are many many reuse possible between the 2 worlds.
Domino Web Development with XPages has moved faster in the last 2 years with Xpages (beta and gold releases) than in the last 15 years. And It's still moving very fast thanks to a fabulous team led, among others, by Philippe Riand the lead Xpages Architect.
Imagine Domino "core" features (NSF Datastore, granular security, replication, template facility etc...) with, on top of it, an application server completely extensible (Xpages + extension library), standard compliant so he can talk and be called easily by the rest of the wolrd + an IDE itself extensible: you got it, Xpages and DDE !
The backend is there, the tooling is there, but we, developers / architects etc also have to make our part of the Job : stop doing "old school" notes applications and do real domino development !
And, I'm sorry to say this, it's time to be offensive ! The project we are just finishing started several months ago with a "No, no Domino here, we hate Domino" from the customer CTO : we showed him what recent Domino version could do, we cleanly integrated it in Websphere Portal etc.. In the end, it's becoming an official IBM reference with video testimonials and so on. Not to mention that this customer has Exchange/Outlook for messaging...but we sold the vision of Domino as an application server and it worked well : application works very well, every one is happy...
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"The backend is there, the tooling is there, but we, developers / architects etc also have to make our part of the Job : stop doing "old school" notes applications and do real domino development ! "
Why restrict to just "real domino development"? Why not just say "Real development". A good developer should be able to do good work in many development platform. In Jake's case, he can do good work with Domino, .Net and php. Its better to be called "Good Developer" than "Good domino developer".
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Great response to the post. I look forward to your reference !
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Too bad you don't live in Norway, we are hiring ;)
There is clear proof that Notes (client) based development is dying, and also sales of new Domino/Notes installations are down (almost) to nothing. If you look at what IBM are doing with Lotus Connections and other "web 2.0" technologies, the market is actually on the rise, of course talking about Norway, I do realize it's quite different from UK.
Currently we are doing heavy domino development on our own applications, but we usually don't sell Domino, we sell (web) solutions, and usually hosted. If we weren't already an IBM partner, and had heavy knowledge of Domino, we would most likelly have chosen a different platform, but as it is, it makes most sense to do what we do.
Having myself worked with different technologies during my career, including Asp.Net, I have taken the approach that whatever pays the bills (and is somewhat fun to work with) goes, it never pays off being a platform "die hard".
Btw, to those who says "xpages is the future", they are right about the fact that it is the future of Domino development, but the learning curve is brutal, it's doing a lot of "black magic" behind the scenes, and you still end up doing your own design "kludges", just as you did with "classic" web development.
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XPages is just a standard JEE technology (JSF) made more elegant, faster, with native NSF datastore and a great IDE (DDE). So I strongly disagree with your last sentence
Moreover, the concept behing JSF are quite similar to .net webform (or whatever it's called) + the "hack" we used to have to do in "classic" Domino are, by far, reduced to nearly nothing (I only say nothing to prevent someone from comming with THE counter exemple that certainly exists here hehehe)
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I can back Bjørn's sentiments, Domino work is still solid in Norway.
The key we've found is to be innovative and "hide" the fact it is Domino. Like everywhere else, the mention of Lotus Notes often meets with a quick "no" from pro MS customers. We provide a black box solution, just plug it in and all support is provided by us, thus no need for the customer to have any Notes competence at all.
For me personally, Domino is just the backend, I consider myself a web developer first and foremost, but like many have dabbled in other technologies to keep myself up-to-date.
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I have always been one of the guys that would love to hear what you have to say about the power of xPages - and still do.
Times are very hard in the domino market these days and its NOT going to get any better except IBM start to get with educational programs and getting young people to look what Notes is all about in schools and training centers.
After saying that lets see what Vulcan will do for us. I love the concept I really believe that it CAN be somewhat eye catcher for existing domino shops and others.
Look back with a smile and go forward – do what you need to do to keep your family feed and worm.
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Yeah, it's a shame I'll probably never get the chance to learn XPages and report back my findings.
Having said that I did have an idea of a blog post which said something along the lines of "Help find me paid job developing XPages and I'll pay you/the community back by blogging all about it". Whether I will or not I don't know. And whether anything would come of it, who knows...
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Spoiler alert - all signs point to the appdev platform for Vulcan being XPages.
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I think the last commenters fail to see the point here, this is not about technology, not about xPages. It is about making a viable living, one that can support a family and freelancer lifestyle. If there are too few customers in an area to make that living, the technology becomes irrelevant now matter how promising it is.
With Jake losing his customers, so many reports of companies moving away from Domino, near-empty job boards, the signs are worrying and in certain areas may even reach a tipping point. It is a terrifying sign for a platform if key players in the community cannot make a living of it. It likely also means no new developers enter the community, which in the long run is a sign of near death.
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Blog responses always go off like that.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that I couldn't make a living from Domino any longer. I probably could. BUT. It would mean *hunting* for the work. I've never had to do that, as work has always come to me (thanks to this site). It doesn't seem to be any longer. Not Domino anyway.
So, I probably could continue to work with Domino, but I can't help feeling I'd be postponing the inevitable.
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Ferdy,
I partially agree with what you are saying. However, I truly believe that the Domino platform will be a viable development platform in the future. However, I do not see a future for the Lotus Notes client. Whether you are a freelancer or a company, you have to support your business and feed your family. Therefore, if the customer needs a solution and they have .NET then so be it. If it is Ruby on Rails so be it. XPages is great in the Domino world but it still lacks behind when compared with other solutions. For us Domino is simply a unique datastore that has great back-end integration capabilities. That is what make Domino great not XPages. We have adopted Dojo (which is what parts of XPages are based on) not XPages because our skills can be applied to other platforms.
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Hi Jake, I agree what have been discussed in all the comments above, a lot of common sense and many things I've been experiencing and thinking myself (except I'm not self-employed but I'm working in a end-users company). I will not repeat what was written but just share one thought.
I tend to think that being master in a niche is better than being average in a commodities market. I'm convinced that someone like you who has proven so many qualities and strength in whatever you do could still make money in Lotus Domino market. But to do this you would probably have to extend your geographical area to whole Europe and maybe beyond and it would be necessary to sharpen your skills in the most advanced areas, like x-page. I've been following your site for many years. In the early years you were in the top innovators. Then I saw you engaged in .Net and Flex and it seems you were not as interested as before in Notes/Domino technology. Or maybe it reflected your contracts at the time. Do you think that at a certain time you lost your focus on Domino and this could explain the reduction of your customers coverage in this area ?
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I think the issue is that this particular niche (Domino, and in particular Domino consultancy) is shrinking and others are growing. Run a job search on any freelance board, and what do you find? PHP, Ruby, ASP.NET, Java, C# (probably in that order), and so on.. There are many, many more projects for PHP developers than Domino developers available.
As an independent developer, does it matter what IBM is doing with Quickr? Or Same time? Or mash-ups? When you're looking for clients, and what most clients want is to have an e-commerce site of some sort quickly and professionally built, four things come in to play:
1. Hosting cost
2. Development time
3. Security
4. What the client wants
This obviously is a list for new clients, or clients without an established web host.
Number four generally is the most important. Followed by number one (since price is usually involved in what the client wants all around). If a small business can have a booking site built for his hotel in PHP and pay 1500.00 for it (and most such sites bid out at much, much less than that), how many are going to want to pay 3000.00 or more for the same site built in Domino knowing that any future development costs will be higher than what they can find for the comparable PHP site? While, as developers, we may argue that security is important, and that Domino's security model is simpler and easier to implement, many of the customers requesting PHP applications only care about authentication/registration of users and a basic security model. Nothing fancy. Most also will presume (and expect) that a developer will have a stock library and database to use for this purpose, so that it will not add to the time required to build the app. In today's markets, if the prospective developer doesn't have these, or wants to charge more for a more robust security setup, they'll simply find someone who will do it without the extra charge, just to have the work.
Clients who do have an established web host are going to want to stick with what they already have in place. If they're not hosting their own site, that often means go daddy or iPage (in the US), or some other commercial host. How many of those are Domino? Not many. Granted not every business needs their site hosted by someone else, but there is a lot of work in building this type of site/application.
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It would be hard to pin a date on it, but yes, at some point I must have lost my focus on Domino.
However, I've only ever chosen to work with Domino as work kept coming my way and I never had to go looking for it. So my focus on Domino was customer-driven. Therefore, me losing focus must be a reflection of the general customer base. Although it's probably also a lot to do with my waning interest in it, which probably didn't help attract any new customers.
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Gosh, only 10% Domino last year, and now even less?
In that case I would suspect that you may be saddened, but not especially worried by what's happening.
Quite suprised after all this time to read that you never really liked Domino, and don't want to do it anymore.
I thought that you lived and breathed the thing, but had the occasional 'Lovers tiff' with it, as we all do.
Is this it for Codestore then? - Or the Domino part of it anyway.
If so I will miss your writings on the Platform, and wish you all the best for the future, wherever it takes you.
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Couple the fact it's 10% with the fact that my overall takings dropped by 40% on the year before and you can see why I'm even more saddened ;-) And, yes, worried too.
I lived and breathed it because there was demand for my skill. That's not to say I ever really liked or enjoyed using it.
There's a aspects of Domino/Notes that I love, but, generally speaking, I won't miss it.
Yes, it's probably it for the Domino part of this site. Unless of course Domino works come my way again in the future. But really, the Domino part of this site hasn't been there for well over a year anyway. Perhaps two. Perhaps more.
Jake
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I went to the XPages bootcamp in Denmark in December, and I think it's a very impressive technology. It makes web-development a lot easier, that's for sure. You can build most of your UI in XML (based on JFaces) which is in my opinion a lot better than traditional Domino development.
However, I think IBM is a bit too late to the party. IBM is doing with XPages what the Java and .NET world have been doing for years. They are playing catch-up in a world that has changed a lot in the last few years...
In my country there is almost no demand for Domino developers anymore, while the demand for Java/.NET/PHP is still booming.
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Genuine question - is there ANYBODY who seriously believes Notes is around to stay as a long term platform.
Not COULD it have survived
or even
SHOULD it have survived
but
WILL it.
I have believed the answer is not and have done for several years. And yes, IBM must shoulder a large part of the blame, but in all honesty, who could block the Microsoft juggernaut.
There are excellent aspects of Notes, and for RAD I don't think anything will ever beat it, but it's days are numbered.
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When I look back at what I was saying on this blog 8 or 9 years ago the very same question was being asked back then. If Notes is dying then it's a very long drawn-out death to be sure.
Will it survive? Probably, but not on the scale it once thrived. There will be die-hard "Notes shops" for years.
While it might survive, whether it's *alive* or not is another question.
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If IBM is a bit serious about Domino they would have updated default templates that come with the 8.5.2 server...
Would you show that to a potential non Domino customer. All this talk about power of XPages...
Looking at Sharepoint out-of-the-box, I can see why people are switching.
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Maybe you'll have some surprises in a few days...maybe..
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Jake,
Your observations and experience in the market are consistent with Australia as well. Australia is clearly a MS market that Domino floats around in. I haven't had to find alternative technologies to learn yet, but one does feel like we're not far from it.
Also, Hearing less than complementary things about IBMs effort and approach. Internally it seems they have raised the white flag and are focusing on websphere. I look forward to the spin at LS.
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It's the same trend here in Sweden. New exciting projects haven't seen the daylight here for a couple of years. Most of the work we are doing here at our company is small "Can you fix this" jobs. Or support contracts.
But mainly what you here is that most of the customers are moving to MS. And halfway down the road they don't have any budget left to build the domino-apps in a MS-environment, so they end up with a Domino (for apps) AND an MS (for mail) environment. Hence the support contracts......
But speaking for myself, I worked on 1 Notes app in the last 2 years. For some reason I ended up working with WebSphere Portal. Which is not future-safe either I think. Sweden is too small for that.
The feeling I have is that IBM is not making any effort to "promote" Domino (or any other product for that matter) in Sweden.
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3 months after the last comment I know... Glad you have moved on. When you leave the field it really is Domino R.I.P.
And yet it lives on! There are a lot of document stores out there. CouchDB has a huge amount of Notes datastore goodness. MongoDB gives you much of the same without the weirdness of Erlang under the hood.
Good luck with ASP-NET. Stay away from JEE - there was a great slideshow done by NASA JPL comparing various languages and frameworks for building web applications. Compares Java, J2EE, Python, Plone, Zope, Ruby, TurboGears on a variety of metrics including time to develop, lines of code, restarts, and "fun". It ain't here any more
http://oodt.jpl.nasa.gov/better-web-app.mov
I have been looking for a Django-esque MVC framework that didn't map to a SQL database. Never thought it would be written in Javascript - when I think to the crap I wrote for Notes 4.5 ...
Still early days with expresso running on node using MongoDB as the datastore and yet it feels so right!
If you find yourself with not a lot on one weekend try this bootstrap app
http://blog.cliftoncunningham.co.uk/tag/mongoose/
Hope you are never afraid to show your roots on keep codestore going just the way you are.
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