That Guy In Yellow Notes...

Lotus Notes. It always comes across as an enigma to me. Some would die for it, and yet many would die to murder it. (Ha! Death, either way!) I have struggled to answer questions like “Dude, what exactly is this Lotus Notes?” and “What do you do in Lotus Notes”, and to hit the final nail in the coffin, “Um, er…does it pay well?” To the first two questions, I have devised an ingenious answer – “Lotus Notes is a database management system which can couple up as a collaboration tool for enterprise solutions, and I design those collaboration systems using the Notes Designer!” Thunder! Lightening! Blackout! There you go, all you Java and SAP and Mainframe experts, go scratch your, um, head! For the last question, I stick to my million USD mysterious smile.

However, between you and me, I am yet to fully discern the answers myself. Notes and I are together more by chance than by choice. Fresh out of college and ignorant about the IT world, with all the bragging about AI programming, Genetic Algorithms and Data Structures in my CV, I was flung into this technology. Go figure! And with little training to speak of (I mean, I didn’t even know what workspace meant), I was assigned to a project. Baptism by fire, I say!

I figured I had to learn it on my own. Wasn’t easy, I tell you. I relied heavily (and I still do!) on the help files, various forums and Google. Newer challenges meant newer revelations, newer learning. Oftentimes I have wondered whether I ought to move to something considered cool. But Notes kind of stuck with me. And gradually, as I explored more and more, I realized that it isn’t a fraction as bad as it is often projected to be.

And in this regard, I feel that IBM has failed its own product. Notes, whether by design or by chance, has the potential to conveniently outrival other groupware solutions. Security is essential to any IT solution, and Notes has a security infrastructure to die for. It has the power to design the coolest applications. And yet, it is losing out in market. Mostly because IBM has failed to market it well enough as something beyond just email and sametime. And partly because we, and by we I mean you and I, the gentle, uncared-for, politely-pushed-aside-to-the-sidelines Lotus Notes programmers, have seldom had the opportunity of getting good trainings, have always lacked organized learning materials and thus have not been able to realize the full potential of Notes.

How many times have we heard the same old convenient excuse for poor performance of a Notes application, “because it is Notes!” But perhaps, we, the programmers, have overlooked the important aspect of fine tuning the applications that we design. Perhaps we are not aware of some fine but obscure nuances of Notes, or have not come across some ingenious workarounds to certain limitations. How many times have we been asked to teach someone Notes in two days, because “there is nothing much in Notes, and you don’t need more than that to learn this stuff!” And, as you would have continually experienced, this two-day learning and poor performance are often inter-related.

So, here I come, sent by the Almighty to save you all (computer error), I have come up with this blog space which I hope can be the meeting ground for the Lotus Notes programmers, where you and I can share our experiences, trivialities, ideas, successes, frustrations and just about anything without having to care about being formal and professional, and let’s just have some fun with it. I shall try to share the interesting challenges that I face as I work in my small and crowded cube. And invite you all to share your own, as knowledge increases when shared. Perhaps, as we help each other to learn and explore, we may end up a united voice to demand our fair share of respect in the software world, lest we be pushed to ignominy.