Is 8.5 All Things to All Men (and Women)?
8.5 has been Gold for a couple of months now and it seems to be pretty well received by the community, the reviewers and the analysts. And I've seen much advise saying to upgrade as soon as you can. In fact Bill posted this today:
"Basically, there’s no excuse now. It’s a downturn, you've gotta save money and admin costs in your environment. Get those servers upgraded. "
How does 8.5 save admin costs? DAOS & ID vault are the golden tickets for admins it seems and with good reason. Ed has summarised some of the savings being seen in the field and they are very, very impressive. So, is 8.5 all things to all admins? It could well be.
But how about the people that really matter, the users? I've just upgraded my desktop to 8.5 and first impressions are positive. Little annoyances, like the missing selection gutter, have been resolved and if it proves to be stable then my colleagues will be happy too as many of them have been having problems with 8.0.2. So, is 8.5 all things to all users? It could well be.
Now let’s turn to the devs. The 8.5 launch was heralded as the time when building Notes & Domino apps entered the 21st century because of the Eclipse factor, but is it the start of the renaissance or another false dawn? If I have a small box full of stuff and put the small box into a bigger box with greater capacity, my stuff is still restricted by the dimensions of the original small box. That is how I see DDE in 8.5. DDE is now running on Eclipse, but the old Domino restrictions are still in place. Search & replace is not round-trippable (or it is a bug if you prefer - see comment14) , the element comparison is awkward to say the least because they are based on DXL. XPages are great for web dev, but they don't work in the Notes client. So, is 8.5 all things to all devs? Almost certainly not!
But let us not be too despondent, it looks like 8.5 could be more renaissance than false dawn as 8.5.1 is hopefully just around the corner and looks like it will be the start of Lotus immersing DDE in Eclipse a bit more and utilising some of the power and functionality that is on offer. Referring back to my box analogy, 8.5.1 could take the stuff out of the small box and put it in the bigger box directly, meaning the small box is no longer restrictive. It may not solve the search & replace issues as that is down to DXL and is not likely to be fixed so soon, but at least it should see XPages on the Notes client and the API will open up a bit and give more plug in and tool capabilities. So, is 8.5.1 all things to all devs? It could well be.
So what is best for everyone? Bill suggests upgrading your servers now, and he has not been alone in saying this, and as far as the production servers go, I'd agree. Of course, if production is going to 8.5, then so should the test environment. But the development environment is where you need to carefully consider your next move, and I believe should be pegged back to 8.0.
The admin benefits of 8.5 don't apply to the development environment to any great degree, so the compelling argument evaporates. The downside of upgrading to 8.5 and not waiting for 8.5.1 is exposing your development, and therefore the applications, to a great risk because 8.5 has too many gaps that can be exploited by human error and process requirements.
While it is a shame that you can't get going implementing Xpages in everything by staying on 8.0, Xpages are only web compatible in 8.5 so the loss is irrelevant for at least half the applications. Where there are web apps that must be built or re-worked using Xpages before 8.5.1 arrives, this is where you need to weight up the priorities - upgrade to what is fundamentally an incomplete, flawed release, or wait until 8.5.1 and adjust deadline accordingly.
Category Notes 8.5
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