Maybe that is the problem - people today are looking for XPages or Flex or whatever is the new hot tech to make things look amazing out of the box. To me, that is the wrong attitude. I can have an amazing app on the iPhone as easy as I can create some of the worst UI ever designed - look and feel is all about the person(s) writing the app, not the platform or technology.
XPages and Flex are both about letting me write applications faster and with current standards (css, themes, ajax, etc) than I could before. Sure, you could build an amazing and sexy app in Domino 7.X for the browser. But I know for 1000% sure I can write the same app in XPages faster, cleaner, and without the sheer number of hacks we needed before. Plus, if you use CSS and Themes properly, you should be able to apply skins to the apps without any work. That is a huge step forward.
All of that does not even include the custom controls and what I hope is a new area where BPs and folks on OpenNTF.org can add value. Being able to build components that I can drag and drop into my app is a big deal.
XPages and Flex both also bring a convergence of web and rich client. Show me a facebook.exe app ... yeah, there isn't one. All they do is web and mobile.
Yes, XPages are very 1.1 in terms of their lifespan (I am using 8.5.1 so they get a bump from 1.0). But what I can do today allows me to build rich, detailed, and better looking apps than I could a year ago. That is a worthy improvement. And since I am still not a graphic designer, they still look like crap until I get our graphics guy involved :-)
Maybe that is the problem - people today are looking for XPages or Flex or whatever is the new hot tech to make things look amazing out of the box. To me, that is the wrong attitude. I can have an amazing app on the iPhone as easy as I can create some of the worst UI ever designed - look and feel is all about the person(s) writing the app, not the platform or technology.
XPages and Flex are both about letting me write applications faster and with current standards (css, themes, ajax, etc) than I could before. Sure, you could build an amazing and sexy app in Domino 7.X for the browser. But I know for 1000% sure I can write the same app in XPages faster, cleaner, and without the sheer number of hacks we needed before. Plus, if you use CSS and Themes properly, you should be able to apply skins to the apps without any work. That is a huge step forward.
All of that does not even include the custom controls and what I hope is a new area where BPs and folks on OpenNTF.org can add value. Being able to build components that I can drag and drop into my app is a big deal.
XPages and Flex both also bring a convergence of web and rich client. Show me a facebook.exe app ... yeah, there isn't one. All they do is web and mobile.
Yes, XPages are very 1.1 in terms of their lifespan (I am using 8.5.1 so they get a bump from 1.0). But what I can do today allows me to build rich, detailed, and better looking apps than I could a year ago. That is a worthy improvement. And since I am still not a graphic designer, they still look like crap until I get our graphics guy involved :-)