wissel.net

Usability - Productivity - Business - The web - Singapore & Twins

Domino Designer in Eclipse

At Lotusphere you could see something that would make your Domino Developer heart beat faster. Maureen actually demonstrated the integration of Domino Designer and Eclipse. She doesn't seem to be threatened, that Wild Bill promised to kiss her feet on release <g>. However what was absent from the 'phere was a timeline or official commitment when this will happen. I guess all Domino developers would appreciate the power of Domino Designer for Eclipse. So I created a little petition. Head over to Domino Designer for Eclipse, sign the petition and spread the word!

Posted by Stephan H Wissel on 03 February 2007 | Comments (3) | categories: IBM Notes Lotus Notes

Comments

posted by Jack Dausman on Thursday 08 February 2007 AD:
Stephan -- I absolutely can't wait.
posted by Axel Janssen on Thursday 15 February 2007 AD:
An early version of an a.d.i.t.i.o.n.a.l Domino Designer based on Eclipse might smoothen the adaption part for those Domino Developers who believe that all those eclipsey things might make them more productive on the long run.
Don't underestimate the transistion period. For example, I believe that features typical for an eclipse backed software dev process like concurrent version systems (cvs/subversion), checkers for following of code quality metrics (checkstyle/pmd), test driven development with junit or testng, do have a positive impact on my productivity and satisfaction in my job. Nevertheless there is an adaption path to use those effectively. I know from own experience. And the earlier the interested have the chance to start the walk the better as long as the product is stable.
So lets not see it only as threat, but also as a chance. Computers might be re-configured over the weekend. Developers certainly not.

peace, Axel
posted by John Head on Thursday 15 February 2007 AD:
I tried to do a manual trackback Stephen, but its broken. So ...

Why are we making a mountain out of a molehill? http://www.johndavidhead.com/jhead/johnhead.nsf/dx/why-are-we-making-a-mountain-out-of-a-molehill

Coming out of Lotusphere2007 in Orlando last month, I was pretty excited to be a Notes developer. Notes 8 is the rebirth of the client I love to develop for, Lotus Component Designer was giving me Domino Designer-like functionality while developing for other IBM products, and Maureen demoed the progress on the project to rebuild Domino Designer within Eclipse. Her session showed a bunch of cool stuff, including the following screenshots

I had even heard rumors that there were other resources besides Maureen on the project and we might not have to wait until the Notes/Domino "NEXT" releases for this. Wow!

So now that we are back from sphere, it seems that some people are impatient. One of them, Stephen Wissel, created a site and poll around the new Designer. Either to push them to release it sooner or just show support, to me it came across as a bit ungrateful. They are working on it, what more do we need? But, hey, the community is much larger than one person, so I let it go.

Until now . This week, I have had multiple emails from customers and users asking me if IBM's support of Domino Designer, and Notes, was in jeopardy. I thought "not again!" I pushed a bit and found out that more than a couple people perceive that poll as IBM needs to be told that we support this being done ... AT ALL! Oh, and since Stephen is an IBMer, that there is dissenting factions inside IBM towards the goal of the overhaul. I asked a couple folks in our community, and at least one agreed with me and admitted they had heard this as well.

So while I think the poll was created in desire to support IBM, then end result is that a bad perception has been created. I worry now that IBM will shut down all talk about prototyping features that are not scheduled for release. This does not only effect Maureen, but people like Jeff Eisen, who demoed calendar overlays as something he was playing with for a future version.

Moral of the story: Do not look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when the horse pays your bills.