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Are XPages the Dojo Killer

One of the topics that comes up frequently in conversations these days is web-enabling applications. I used to talk about adding a little bit of Dojo to your code to get a very appealing web interface. And then I saw XPages, which really addresses the notion of: 'what are you trying to accomplish by web enabling your application? XPages allows the developer to completely rethink how a user interacts with the data. Can you imagine trying to order something from Amazon if a Notes developer just web enabled that database?

Based on the articles, blog posts, and videos going around, it seems that XPages have been very quickly adopted by the development community. I know you are supposed to use the tool that is appropriate for the problem, but those frameworks were (see - I'm even talking about them in the past tense) hard to use. The Notes team has given us a tool in XPages that is a lot easier to adopt. So, is anyone still debating Dojo versus Ext.ND anymore?

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Posted by John Kingsley On 06/15/2009 | | | |   | del.icio.us  | Technorati  | Digg This 

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1 - I'll ignore the obvious fact that XPages contains the dojo framework and the fact that you can, if you want, use any other framework if developing an Xpages application and just point out one addition feature that XPages brings to the table that using a pure java framework never did and never will... Server Side JavaScript.

Server side javascript is where the real power of XPages is, not the framework used. With JSS you can do some killer things that were, well not impossible but very difficult with previous web development techniques in Domino. Add to that the scoped variables and the fact that you can reuse all your formula and lotusscript skills within the server side javascript and it is no wonder that XPages is really taking off as a development environment for web developers.

There is still a need to use a framework for some more complex client side stuff. Dojo is a good choice as it's all built-in but the documentation is very scarce on it. You still need to make a choice.

Posted by Declan Lynch At 03:05:46 PM On 06/15/2009 | - Website - |


2 - I guess that's what I'm talking about. I'm just a dumb developer, and there are some things that I just never felt the need to dig into. Like layers. And now that's gone. Or the API. And I still think I delivered some pretty good applications.

I feel the same way about frameworks. Maybe if I ignore them long enough, they will go away. Or maybe another, easier way to accomplish the same thing will come along. I think XPages is that easier thing. That's not to say I won't come across that time when I need to tweak the Dojo stuff...

Posted by John Kingsley At 03:53:46 PM On 06/15/2009 | - Website - |


3 - Integrating Dojo with previous Domino releases was a pain. But in 8.5 many Dojo options are embedded in XPages you don't even know it's there.
In any case Dojo is huge and you'll have to learn it in order to integrate it into your apps, being XPages or not. But I forsee graphics, more controls, even a framework similar to iNotes available to use directly from controls in XPages in, maybe, Designer 9.x Emoticon

Posted by Miguel Calvo At 01:05:55 PM On 06/25/2009 | - Website - |


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