It has been a long time since part 1 and a lot of things have changed since the original graphic. XPages came along, Dojo got some decent documentation and everything became social. However the the graphic hasn't changed that much:
There's ServerSide JavaScript and XPages, which isn't hard to snap up if you had sufficient exposure to JavaScript and XML (as suggested before). For die-hard-LotusScript-Forms-Only developers the new HTML/JavaScript driven way of doing things is a big learning curve. There is a Domino Designer that looks more and more like an Eclipse plug-in (which IMHO is a good thing) and made you put SSD and RAM on the Christmas wish list. What is new (and don't tell me next year you haven't seen it coming) is the convergence in all IBM APIs towards a set of common standards. Moving forward you must make yourself familiar with them. In a future version of Notes they will become the API of choice for exceptional work experiences (I shamelessly borrow a term from IBM marketing here). Since you are already familiar with XML, HTTP and JSON, these APIs are actually easy to comprehend:
ATOM Publishing Protocol (AtomPub): XML based format for reading and writing information with structured meta data. Properly implemented is makes heavy use of Dublin Core meta data descriptions. ATOM is behind a lot of data exchange and API including OData (the format Microsoft and SAP have committed to). There is Apache Abdera for Java, support for Atom in Dojo and even jQuery
OpenSocial: Framework to build applications for integrated experiences. The title might be a bit misleading, since it is much more than "add a share this" button to your page. It is a complete widget definition and interaction standard. Extends iWidgets. Both IBM Portal as well as the IBM XPages server will be both OpenSocial containers and widget contributors. Already today a Domino server cann serve a component in RCP Widget and iWidget format, so we can expect that the component model will support OpenSocial too
ActivityStreams: While OpenSocial defines interaction up to the UI level, ActivityStreams are the pipes feeding new information into your experience. The ver brief definition: ActivityStreams are ATOM data feeds that have at minimum the agreed set of attributes ad defined by the ActivityStreams working group. I expect ready ActivityStreams controls to first appear in the XPages Extension Library before they move to the product core control set
Last not least the IBM Social Business Toolkit: It brings all the above components together. The real remarkable aspect: As of today there is no shipping IBM product supporting the full API, nevertheless IBM provides a working test environment, so you can test and be prepared
From my training experience I can tell: If you grew up with web standards, developing on the XPages platform is fast and fun.
Don't try this at home!
Tue, May 21st 2013 1:14p Stephan H Wissel Domino has a refined security system, so the java.policy file can be a real PITA. So you would be tempted to write a few lines of LotusScript and run it on a scheduled agent, so on the next server restart that pain goes away. Of course you wouldn't write code like below which lacks any error handling.You also would not hide this code from your admin people who would want an impact study and your firstborn for any change they make. So instead of doing all this you wait until there is a proper co [read] Keywords: admin
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Enterprise 2.0 and weight loss - siblings separated at birth?
Tue, May 14th 2013 12:18p Stephan H Wissel This blog entry is inspired and largely translated from this German article authored by enterprise consultant Andreas Schulze-Kopp. Having gone through some personal transformation (final results in November) myself I found Andreas' comparison of Enterprise 2.0 initiatives and weight loss programs intriguing.
The tasks are comparable: alter habits, break through the mould of old behavioural pattern (a.k.a processes in business lingo) show enough determination and will power to see it through. [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
development
enterprise
linux
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CRM > Sales Tracking
Sun, May 5th 2013 9:20a Stephan H Wissel IBM is ditching Siebel CRM in favour of SugarCRM. Cloud based CRM was made popular by SalesForce while Zoho wants a share of the pie too.
All to often CRM offers or is used as sales force automation tool, which it is not (only). But what makes a good CRM? It needs to provide access to anything that relates to a customer. Doh - that's what the name claims.
In larger organisations CRM typically is understood very narrowly as sales tracking tool, the broader definition as outlined above gets c [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
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applications
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123
Dear SingTel, please fix your routing performance!
Wed, Apr 24th 2013 9:18p Stephan H Wissel Slashdot asked for the latency to their site, so I ran a few tests with pretty consistent results in the 250ms range. Slashdot labels that as "still stuck on dialup or in space". Their expectations for overseas users was 80 to 150ms. Puzzled by the result (local websites typically respond in the sub 2ms range), I used traceroute to get to the bottom of this. Here are the results:
td.Default {border-right : 1px dotted #CCCCCC; border-bottom : 1px dotted #EEEEEE; padding : 1px}
Hop
IP
DNS [read] Keywords: admin
css
MAMIL*
Sun, Apr 21st 2013 6:17a Stephan H Wissel Cycling in Singapore can be fun once you:
Find the right group
Do it at night
Are not afraid to cycle along an unlit Cemetery or ghosts
* Middle Aged Man In Lycra [read] Keywords: wiki
180
A more actionable Connections UI
Fri, Apr 19th 2013 6:18a Stephan H Wissel IBM Connections is a two headed beast: on one hand it is a set of rich APIs offering different services (Status, Blogs, Wiki, Text, Activities etc) on the other it provides a set of UIs on top of this APIs. Yes, not one, but a set: Browser, Android, iShiny™ and IBM Notes. I'm a big fan of the APIs. After all they stand for IBM's commitment to open standards and are build with XML, REST, ATOM and ActivityStreams compliant to the OpenSocial specifications.
I'm not so sure about the UIs, [read] Keywords: connections
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Planning applications (XPages MindMap)
Thu, Apr 18th 2013 8:18a Stephan H Wissel In a recent XPages workshop in Kuala Lumpur, the class brainstormed on the planning process for an XPages application. This is what we came up with. For every item on the list one could elaborate quite a bit, but putting that on the map would make it rather messy.
Enjoy [read] Keywords: xpages application
applications
312
Is SharePoint a Failed Vision for Collaboration?
Sun, Apr 14th 2013 6:16a Stephan H Wissel Rich Blank (of Jive software) makes a case on CMSWire to consider SharePoint a failure for collaboration. Looking closely it isn't SharePoint to fault.
SharePoint with its place concept and flat views is a 1:1 conceptual copy of Lotus Notes implemented with a (then) current Microsoft technology stack. Thus it does have the potential for successful collaboration, as the (then) success of Lotus Notes clearly showed.
With the right effort of adoption any collaborative technology can be successfu [read] Keywords: collaboration
connections
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lotus
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email
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