Lotus Notes is the "Ginsu knife"
of application development. This extreme flexibility means that Notes doesn't fit
neatly into a single software category in either its definition and
functionality.
Lotus Notes is also a full-featured rapid application development
platform. Notes uses a semi-structured data store that allows for the
creation and processing of "documents" (which are similar to records in relational database systems).
Documents are displayed to the user as "forms," which reveal the
application's pertinent fields. This means that you can use Notes to
build electronic workflow applications that can create requests, notify approvers via e-mail and process the requests once the approval is granted.
Example: an expense reporting application built on the Notes platform could allow
users to enter their expenses, route the document to their supervisors
for approval (perhaps with an additional level of approval if the amount
is over a certain limit), and then generate a notice to the Accounting
department to reimburse the user.
Applications built for Notes incorporate a wide variety of open standard technologies, such as JavaScript,
HTML, Java and LotusScript (a close relative of Visual Basic).
Developers who already know some of these technologies can quickly come
up to speed in Notes application development, producing complex workflow
applications very little time.
It's common in Notes for power users to develop applications that meet a tactical need, with little assistance from IT. On
the other hand, Designer's easy-to-use interface historically can be a
frustration at times to high-end developers. The latest version of
Notes/Domino (version 8) has an Eclipse-based IDE,
making it easy for some of those developers—for whom Eclipse is their
native environment—can easily grasp the environment and produce
high-quality applications.
The full name of IBM's software offering is IBM Lotus Notes and
Domino. Lotus Notes refers to the Notes client, which is installed on
the user's personal computer, and is used to access both mail files and
Notes applications.Domino is the server component of the Notes/Domino team, and it runs on a variety of operating systems.
The Notes client accommodates by replicating data
between server and local versions of your mail files and applications. When a network connection exists, Notes synchronizes data between
the server and client. The replication occurs at the field level, so
two people can update different fields in the same document (such as an
invoice or travel request); the server merges the updates so that the
document shows both sets of changes.
You can build both Notes client applications and applications that are
accessed through a Web browser. Domino has a built-in HTTP server that
renders content based on normal HTTP requests. Domino takes the
application's design and data and renders it into HTML "on the fly" for
the browser. That's one quick way to migrate an in-house legacy application to an intranet or extranet.
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How difficult is it to master?
ReplyDeleteTo become a Certified Associate Notes and Domino System Administrator involves a one-day training course and one exam, plus demonstrating hands-on competence. But there are different training "paths" for administering, deploying and managing Domino, and you must follow all three to become a Certified Advanced Domino Systems Administrator. Developers, on the other hand, can achieve certification on the basis of pre-existing JavaScript and web services skills, as an alternative to LotusScript.