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LotusNotes

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Re: LotusNotes

#11

Post by EvanAnderson »

andrewstuart wrote: post #8

Lotus Notes was astounding when it arrived. Windows had barely landed. Networking was really only used for file serving in most corporations. There was no email at most companies and TCP/IP was still mostly a university and government thing. Notes turned up as a deeply sophisticated Windows application, a no-code development environment, document oriented, replicated distributed shared data system with built in secur…

I did contract work for a company who made heavy investments into Notes-based applications. The replication capability was super cool. We would setup a new client computer on the corporate LAN, synchronize them to the various Notes databases they needed, then send the computer out to field service reps who would use the computers mostly offline. They updated over a pool of dial-up modems at headquarters. They would run mostly overnight, with the field service reps dialing-in before bed and leaving it to run until it automatically disconnected. Later they used a VPN and dial-up ISPs. It worked astoundingly well.

Their developers moved thru the organization over a period of years making Notes databases out of every paper form-based workflow process they could get their hands on. I lost touch with them and they were acquired by another company, ultimately. I'd love to know what happened to all those custom applications living in Notes. It's hard to think of a platform that could have easily replaced it-- particularly the offline sync / local first portion.

Re: LotusNotes

#12

Post by dharmatech »

pscanf wrote: post #7

I'm building an app that is, in a way, a modern take on Lotus Notes ( https://github.com/superegodev/superego ), and I couldn't feel this more: > It is hard, today, to explain exactly what Lotus Notes was. Whenever I try to explain what it does to a non-tech person, I'm met with confused looks that make me quickly give up and mumble something like "It's for techies and data nerds". I think to myself "they're not my t…

Many people seem to associate "ego" with negative connotation.

The name gives a weird vibe. But, it's free and it's your project so, whatever. ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

Re: LotusNotes

#13

Post by dharmatech »

pscanf wrote: post #7

I'm building an app that is, in a way, a modern take on Lotus Notes ( https://github.com/superegodev/superego ), and I couldn't feel this more: > It is hard, today, to explain exactly what Lotus Notes was. Whenever I try to explain what it does to a non-tech person, I'm met with confused looks that make me quickly give up and mumble something like "It's for techies and data nerds". I think to myself "they're not my t…

Is there a story behind the old guy in the logo?

Re: LotusNotes

#14

Post by dharmatech »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #11
andrewstuart wrote: post #8

Lotus Notes was astounding when it arrived. Windows had barely landed. Networking was really only used for file serving in most corporations. There was no email at most companies and TCP/IP was still mostly a university and government thing. Notes turned up as a deeply sophisticated Windows application, a no-code development environment, document oriented, replicated distributed shared data system with built in secur…

I did contract work for a company who made heavy investments into Notes-based applications. The replication capability was super cool. We would setup a new client computer on the corporate LAN, synchronize them to the various Notes databases they needed, then send the computer out to field service reps who would use the computers mostly offline. They updated over a pool of dial-up modems at headquarters. They would r…

Love stories like this about bespoke systems that might still be running out there somewhere.

Re: LotusNotes

#15

Post by dharmatech »

senectus1 wrote: post #2

I used to manage a Domino/Notes environment back in my early days in IT. Domino server was rock solid I never had to worry about it at all. Notes client was clunky and not super intuitive (4.* through to version 6.01 I think) but was still quite a decent client. groundbreaking stuff for the time. I have mostly fond memories of it.

What platform did you run Domino on?

If Domino was solid, I'd imagine Domino on AS/400 was near unstoppable.

Re: LotusNotes

#16

Post by GMoromisato »

dundercoder wrote: post #4
GMoromisato wrote: post #3

I was a developer at Iris Associates--I worked on versions 2 through 4. For version 3 I stuck in an easter egg in the About box. A certain combination of keys would produce a Monty-Python-like cut-out of Ray Ozzie's head and the names of the developers would fly out of his mouth. [This was when the software world was young and innocent and developers were trusted far beyond what they probably should have been.] Lotus…

With everything as a note, how was it so performant? How did it scale so well?

It was basically NoSQL before NoSQL.

Each note was just a record, but with no schema. Schemas were imposed at the UI layer by forms and at indexing time by views.

Re: LotusNotes

#17

Post by allenu »

dharmatech wrote: post #13
pscanf wrote: post #7

I'm building an app that is, in a way, a modern take on Lotus Notes ( https://github.com/superegodev/superego ), and I couldn't feel this more: > It is hard, today, to explain exactly what Lotus Notes was. Whenever I try to explain what it does to a non-tech person, I'm met with confused looks that make me quickly give up and mumble something like "It's for techies and data nerds". I think to myself "they're not my t…

Is there a story behind the old guy in the logo?

It must be a nod to Freud (i.e. id, ego, and super ego)

Re: LotusNotes

#18

Post by EagnaIonat »

GMoromisato wrote: post #3

I was a developer at Iris Associates--I worked on versions 2 through 4. For version 3 I stuck in an easter egg in the About box. A certain combination of keys would produce a Monty-Python-like cut-out of Ray Ozzie's head and the names of the developers would fly out of his mouth. [This was when the software world was young and innocent and developers were trusted far beyond what they probably should have been.] Lotus…

One of the things that killed it is it suffered the same issue as Visual Basic in that time.

Anyone could create an application. 99% of the time that anyone had 0 UX experience and created travesties that were horrible to use. So people associated the poorly designed database with the product.

Re: LotusNotes

#20

Post by dharmatech »

dharmatech wrote: post #10
pscanf wrote: post #7

I'm building an app that is, in a way, a modern take on Lotus Notes ( https://github.com/superegodev/superego ), and I couldn't feel this more: > It is hard, today, to explain exactly what Lotus Notes was. Whenever I try to explain what it does to a non-tech person, I'm met with confused looks that make me quickly give up and mumble something like "It's for techies and data nerds". I think to myself "they're not my t…

Just watched your demo here: https://youtu.be/vB3xo2qn_g4?si=y2udkdfezSR9ktUO Pretty cool!

I like that you can generate new programs from within the system.

That's something I miss with Notion. I basically want a Notion but extensible and malleable like Emacs.

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