“Are you available for XPages training for beginners?” was the question asked recently. I am not making this up. I really am not. My first reaction (after several seconds - or perhaps minutes - of total suprise) was: “Whaaat? Why would anybody for crying out loud now START to learn XPages?” Then we talked a bit about dates and after realizing I can only do it in September I was sure they won’t want me to do it anymore. To my even bigger surprise they came back. And it got even better today: can you do follow-up advanced training?
I still think that it is some elaborate practical joke from Sutol guys. After several years of presenting sessions about modern ways of development in Domino, doing this would make total sense. I keep telling Sutol audience, that if they want to stay competitive, they need to move on or at least start heavily using Java, ODA, REST etc. in Domino apps. That there is no future for Notes Client applications.
Of course, if you already know XPages, there may be projects where using them makes total sense. But to start with them now?? Planning to invest a lot of money in training? I guess (if this is real) that they must be some big companies/government bureaus. Who else could afford ignoring the reality and live deep in the past?
Moral of the story? There’s none. If time permits I’ll do the training, I want to see those people and ask them why. And to see they faces when I open up the training with telling them they should run away :-)