I have to say that I've never struggled to do what I wanted with any Domino web app I've written and all I've ever needed to use is pass-thru HTML and jQuery/jQuery UI.

Using non-platform specific stuff is also useful as I recently used the exact same methods while putting a PHP based site together.

In saying that there are many features of XPages that would be very useful, but we simply can't upgrade.

true, but we need those customers on newer versions of Domino =)

XPages is still a landscape open for new ideas/approaches/best practices so more articles are more than welcome

IBM Lotus Domino: Classic Web Application Development Techniques by Richard G. Ellis

Packt Publishing

Domino 8.5.2 has integrated support for OSGi and Apache Equinox. Equinox is a lightweight servlet container, and is from 8.5.3 replaced with a full servlet engine. If you don't like JSF, feel free to use something else, we use Freemarker and our own MVC framework, built in Java and Groovy. It gives us full control on the result, is lightening fast, and we feel it's easier to develop for than xPages.

In my experience, the xpages engine is seriously fast, much faster than traditional forms, but I don't develop much with xpages itself, I find dragging and dropping unvieldy, and "programming" in xml an abomination.

"The learning curve for XPages has been too steep for me to get much traction.... I can get Domino to do most anything I need without XPages."

We're still happily using R7 and haven't seen the need to upgrade. Hopefully, you will continue to write articles supporting the developers out there who use the legacy versions and functionality.

XPages has many nice things that you can do with it. If you are use to the traditional Domino Web development method, the learning curve is steep. However, if you come of other platforms it is not that bad. However, XPages has many undesired consequences that I do not like. Therefore, I use my own content management system that generates Dojo and HTML that allow me to create cross platform code. It requires less resources than XPages and uses a simpler approach.

I also don't like how poorly integrated XPages are into the whole Domino model, it just feels bolted on.

So I still do things the old way. Recently, I've found myself shying away from LotusScript and its limitations as a OOP language and limited feature set and I've been doing most of my new agents in Java. At least with doing things in Java, I can transfer my skills elsewhere when IBM eventually lets Domino wither and die. I'm also still bitter all these years later that IBM removed native JSP support from databases, which could have been a real game changer.

So yes - please keep with the traditional posts.

Personally my development skills are not good enough to use a platform that does not offer a debugger (and supports my developer preference for the Mac platform).

Good point. I do enjoy sharing. BUT. I bet most musicians enjoy playing music, but would they play alone in the Albert Hall if nobody turned up to listen?

It's not as simple as that though. I can't just write about something I know nothing of. I write about what I'm doing at the time and so far that has yet to be XPages. I get a nice varied selection of jobs come my way, but nothing with XPages.

The results of the survey above have been interesting. It appears to me that what most bloggers are talking about doesn't necessarily reflect what's going on in the real world.

Based on feedback above I will write the article. After all - if I am still writing ecommerce apps in Domino the old way - what's to say other people aren't?

I see weekly 1-2 'traditional' Domino development items appear on the web compared with 10-20 good XPpages related entries.

So I assume most 'front edge' developers are now occupied with XPages. I am too.

So if you want to be a margin, go with writing traditional Domino development articles. But if you want to have broader focus my suggestion would be to write XPages development articles.

A lot have been discussed, presented etc. before but I guess XPages development for most has gone to the next level (from novice to medium/advanced).

We all know how to display a Notes view in a viewtable by now. But we search for education 'there where no one has gone before'...

Welcome on board!, by the way =)

Just wanted to chime in too.

I haven't done anything with Lotus in almost 2 years, but I still come to Codestore very often just to read. Like I said before, I follow you because I enjoy your writing and enjoy seeing where you are in your engagements.

I enjoy reading them no matter the topic.

Thanks for many years of good reading and I hope for many more!

I have a set of Java libraries and Domino infrastructure I've written that supports the kind of web applications I've specialized in for about ten years now. I can get Domino to do most anything I need without XPages.

What Jerry Carter said earlier in this thread really resonated with me. The fact that IBM doesn't keep Domino in the same decade with the latest technology is one reason I've recently started looking (again) for some FLOSS framework to move to and Zope/Plone (again) leads the pack in my research.

What I want is a flexible content management system to start with which I can style, configure and modify any way I want. Notes/Domino is such a system but the start up and maintenance costs from IBM make it hard to justify to the small customers.

But I'll continue to read your blog just because I like what you write. Now if you start developing with Plone ... that would rock!

Peace,

Rob:-]

Maybe nobody will have the exact same situation, but having read how you did something may well get the brain thinking in another direction when someone has a different issue.

I'd like to see what you had to do.

I tried to vote but It's telling me that someone else at my IP has already voted. I don't know if that means I was counted or not but we're still old school all the way on 8.0.2! We're a big company and we only use one public IP at a time (we have backup IPs if one is down).

I'd love to see an article on this!