30 Years of Notes-Domino
Mat Newman November 27 2019 22:00:00
30 Years ago today, a milestone in the Software industry was reached. Lotus Notes Release 1 Gold Build was compiled on the 27th of November, 1989. While the launch itself wasn't until a few days later on the 7th of December, it's still one of the dates I always consider Notes' Birthday.
Many people ask: What has made this venerable piece of software last 30 years?
Consider this:
- Notes was a NoSQL database, before NoSQL raised to popularity,
- Notes security model is virtually unsurpassed, and trusted by organisations all over the world that heavily rely on that fact,
- Notes had PKI before PKI gained popularity as the security model utilised by the WWW,
- Notes has kept up with emerging standards, and is able to integrate with virtually any system,
- Notes Replication technology has provided organisations with distributed environments the ability to synchronise information, regardless of the number of locations, or the availability of high-bandwidth network connections,
- The Notes Server - renamed Domino in 1996 - has proven itself to be highly reliable, resilient, and extremely scalable,
- The architecture of Notes, with the separation of the Software and Data layer, means an upgrade of the software has virtually no impact on that underlying data the software accesses and manages, ie: No Data Migrations - EVER! (yes, looking at you, Exchange and Sharepoint Admins ...
), - Domino's ability - due to it's incredible architecture - to be Partitioned, Clustered, and even Containerised, has provided high fault tolerance and virtually Zero (0) downtime in most implementations,
- An application built in Notes Release 1, will work with the latest upcoming release of Notes and Domino Version 11 (more on that later!), providing amazing Return On Investment (ROI)!
- Notes was Rapid Application Development (RAD), before RAD was even a thing.
And of course, one of my favourite things about Notes; many organisations purchased Notes for it's Applications capability, and got enterprise grade Mail, Calendaring, and Scheduling - Free Of Charge!
In honour of Notes' 30th Birthday, today I decided to show how amazing that ROI provided by the platform is, by creating an application in Notes Release 1, Accessing that same application in the upcoming Notes Version 11 release, and then modernising that app with just a couple of clicks. Of course, it wouldn't do to finish there - we'll then access that 30 year old Database on an iPad - WITH NO FURTHER DESIGN CHANGES NECESSARY - to demonstrate how even a 30 year old App can now be accessed on a Mobile device.
Here we go!
File -> New, choose a template, give it a file name, and OK
As usual, the first thing one sees is the Database About document, describing what functionality and features the selected template provides. In this case I have used a Discussion Template, think any online forum ever created.
Accessing the design to make modification to the application was simple, Design -> Forms/Views/etc
In this case, I am going to modify the default Main Topic form, to change it's colour and add a new field
The Main Topic form, before modifications
Accessing the Form Properties
Creating a new field, and setting it's type, and values
Modifying Formulas, in this instance to dynamically compute the Title of the Form
Close the designer, so we can use the modified Form to create a new entry
Compose -> Main Topic (Ahhhh ... NOW you know why that formula is @Command([Compose';"":"";"Main Topic"))
Our Modified form, with the new Security field and some data entered.
Ok, so that was pretty simple, we created a database, modified a Form to add a new field, and then created a new Note (document!). So let's do the time warp, and demonstrate how that application we developed 30 years ago today (courtesy of our Way-Back machine) is still providing ROI 30 years later in the latest release of Notes, the upcoming Notes Version 11.
Let's Just check, shall we ... HCL Notes 11 - Check!
Database About Document, since we've opened it for the first time on this client.
Content Complete, No Changes required ... Hmmmm, does look a little dated though, doesn't it?
How about we put a Version 11 fresh face on this 30 year old app, Workspace -> Application -> Replace Design
Choose the brand new Version 11 Discussion Template
Yes, of course we want to Update it!
Voila! A brand new look and feel for our database, No Data Migration Required, and a 30 Year old Notes application ready for the modern world!
And Now - How about we take that 30 year old database and access it on a Mobile device (in this case an iPad)
Of course - open in Nomad for iPad for the first time, and we get the about document
Standard Notes Database layout translates directly to the iPad
And seamless Document rendering
(Hat Tip to Erik Schwalb for the Nomad Screen-Shots)
How cool is it that I was an iPad developer, decades before an iPad was even invented!
There are many things I love about Notes, and have done for the 27 years that I have been working with the application. As we approach a new era, and the fourth re-branding of the product:
- 1989 - Lotus Notes Release 1
- 2003 - IBM Lotus Notes Version 6
- 2013 - IBM Notes Version 9
- 2019 - HCL Notes Version 11
I can honestly say that I have never been as excited about the future of HCL Notes and Domino than I am right now.
Happy Birthday Notes, here's to another 30 years!
So what's your favourite Notes and Domino feature or memory over the past 30 years?
Would love to hear from you in the comments!
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