As a developer, what do you wish administrators knew about your job and role?
Category IBM/Lotus
Notes administrators and Notes developers quite often find themselves speaking a different language when it comes to their day-to-day functions. They're worried about keeping a platform and network up and running, and you're worried about building new apps and supporting existing ones.
If there was one thing you wish administrators knew and understood about your role as a developer, what would it be?
Notes administrators and Notes developers quite often find themselves speaking a different language when it comes to their day-to-day functions. They're worried about keeping a platform and network up and running, and you're worried about building new apps and supporting existing ones.
If there was one thing you wish administrators knew and understood about your role as a developer, what would it be?
Comments
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 03:44:59 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
- Just upgrade one of the domino servers and wonder why the NAB is upgraded. And speaking of the NAB, no - deleting those funny sounding view names will NOT improve performance.
- Yes - its called Admin4.nsf. Not Admin7.nsf because the server is running domino 7. No, its not perfect. Its just the way it is.
- Switching off 'maintain hierarchy' is Bad in Admin4.nsf. Discuss.
- Switch on translog, plaform virus scanning and point it all at the same drive.
- Certlog is not just for christmas, its for life.
- Dont have 10 domains, two of which have the same domain name, and wonder why mail routing doesnt work.
- Dont switch on public key checking without testing. And without a back door.
- Test your backups. No. Really.
- Dont restore databases to the data directory and wonder why they're the same.
- If you see 3k phantom documents reappear in a 160k user domain EVERY DAY for three months - seriously - investigate ?
- Adding LocalDomainServices to a terminations group is *bad*. And if you cant figure out why in 3 seconds - just hand in your pass - your now an exchange admin.
- Yes. There are over 1,500 fields on a server and configuration document combined. And yes, you should know what most of them do. Start with the ones on the security tab. Perhaps the 'allow anonymous access' checkbox ?
- Encryption keys. If you dont understand em - you're missing one seventh of the security proposition of Domino. And so your missing one seventh of your possible solution base. Go back to Old Kent Road, do not pass 'Go', do not collect £200.
- 'No' is not the only answer. 'Yes' Works too, especially if you understand the question. Even 'Why' or 'I dont understand' is good.
- Black Polos look good on Steve Jobs. They look better when they meet the top of your jeans. They'd look a shedload better if you couldnt identify the admins' last seven meals by the stains down the front. Look, we *know* your not a people person. So how about meeting us half way and being a *person* ?
- Upgrading domino servers is fun. Try and keep them the same version as the versions that IBM support. Running 4.5 OS/2 clients against v6.5 servers is possible - but WHY? Its not *supposed* to be a challenge.
- Yes, Microsoft do an Exchange to Domino connector. We *know* what's its *supposed* to do. We all know its crap. We know it breaks your environment. So dont bother suggesting it ever again, unless its for a bet.
Developers are easy. If you think 'option declare' isnt mandatory - hand in your badge. 'Structure, clarity, maintenance' isnt the name of a wine bar. Java is more than coffee. Sockets are more than just places to plug your X-Box into. Error checking is mandatory, as is logging. Fail any of those and - Congratulations! You've earnt a place on the helpdesk. Or reception, depending on your personal hygiene.
We live in an imperfect world, ruled by pointy haired bosses with no clue, less sense and zero understanding of time, keeping little-understood, badly funded but business critical processes running on old servers over crap network cables, for users with no training and no patience. And they wonder why we're short tempered!
Guys if we dont start learning to be inside the tent pissing out together, then I see a great future for Sharepoint.
So. Choose life. Choose the pub. 4.15pm. Friday. Your getting the first round in.
---* Bill
Posted by Wild Bill At 14:48:59 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Duffbert At 10:35:42 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
More things admins need to learn:
Yes, you really DO need to build a test environment that accurately reflects the production environment. And no, I don't care if it's a lot of work. Giving me a test server with 3 users and expecting me to test a workflow system is just moronic. Asking me to test agents that run on a cluster in production but not setting up a cluster in test is a Really Bad Idea.
Yes, the test servers all need to be able to route mail. TO EACH OTHER, ya idjit, NOT to the production domain! And NO, it's not the developer's fault if you screwed up and allowed mail to route to Production.
Yes, I WILL help you automate the management of the test environments. If you ask nicely. Otherwise, you can suffer like the miserable b*st*rd we all know you are. If you're REALLY nice, I'll show you a trick that allows you to have thousands of users testing email-enabled workflow applications with only one mail database. Or you could maintain all the mail databases - your call...
Yes, I really DO insist that you separate the Dev, Test, and Production domains into different organizational certifiers, and I don't particularly care that it's extra work for you. The environments have to be sandboxed so that there's no chance work being done in one will leak out into another. And that includes some moronic admin wannabe doing an icon-to-icon replication from Test to Production without thinking about it. So, yeah, I'm telling you that you can't cross-cert your production ID with the test and dev environments either. Get over it.
No, I don't want Designer access in the test environment, I want READER access so I can see what the test users are whining about.
No, I won't promote my own database designs into the test environment, that's YOUR job. If you don't know how it went when it was promoted to test, what makes you think you won't screw it up when it goes live?
No, you don't enable password expiration in a test lab!
No, I won't "throw together a quick agent" in the Production NAB to do some of your work for you. I'd love to build you a solution because I think anyone who repeats a manual task more than three times without automating it is a masochist, but it will have to be tested just like all our real applications are.
No, I won't "just tweak the mail template" to do whatever you want it to do THIS week. The mail template is an absolute beast, and even though it can (and should, sometimes) be customized, it's not a trivial task. It's a pain in the butt, so we need a better reason than "it'd be cool."
PS Paul, if the admins knew that stuff, we wouldn't have Worst Practices, now would we? Francie's training classes full of clueless but theoretically experienced admins matches up well with my real world experience. And before ya go off on clueless developers, yes, we can say the same about them as well. There are a lot of people doing very silly things on a regular basis...
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 17:50:17 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Duffbert At 19:09:41 On 29/10/2007 | - Website - |
Like a lot of Lotus Geeks, I'm a developer AND an admin, and I always say that people who aren't both need training (and preferably a little experience) in the other role in order to be really effective in their own role.
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 10:49:26 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Ok, Francie, you asked for it. Things admins really should know without us developers having to hold your hands:
The address book isn't some magical incredibly complicated black box - it's just a Notes database with regular Notes documents, and writing code to automate routine admin tasks should be a given, not some highly controversial issue.
Group documents in the NAB are subject to field-size and summary data size restrictions. In other words, you can't paste 15000 fully canonical names into a group document and expect it to work. Learn the underlying data structure of your environment.
Issuance of a doc.Send call that doesn't return an error yet also doesn't result in delivered mail is NOT a bug in the code. It's a server that can't find itself (try to trace the server's own name and watch it fail). The fact that interactive mail works but agent-driven mail doesn't is not proof that the code is broken. Search the freakin' forums and stop expecting the developers to do your troubleshooting for you.
Your servers running out of disk space is not my problem. You not knowing about it well ahead of time, despite the existence of DDM, is very clearly your problem.
No, you CAN'T just shut off the test servers without telling anyone because "they're not real servers."
"Cleaning up" the server document and getting rid of all those pesky entries in the security section is NOT a good idea.
Yes, ACL consistency is a very good thing. But NO, that does NOT mean you make all your ACLs consistent one afternoon without testing how the applications behave with those security settings.
See the two immediately preceding entries: when agents that have run successfully for months suddenly stop working and you've recently changed the server document OR the ACL of any databases, don't come running to the developers, screaming "Bug! Bug!" Try a little Change Management - if something is changed and something else breaks, roll back the change and then figure out what's wrong with that change.
/snark
I have a feeling Duffbert had a different sort of thing in mind, like maybe a serious response... :D
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 09:52:31 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Which must mean either that developers are too chicken to say anything, or that we (Administrators) know everything we need to know about developers already. I'm sure there is a third option, I just can't think of it right now
Posted by francie At 18:49:53 On 29/10/2007 | - Website - |
The biggest challenge though, in both Admins and Developers, imo is not lack of technical knowledge - it's understanding proper process management, as in change management, planning and testing, mixed with lack of common sense.
And don't even get me started on what we wish developers knew.... I have a beach to go to!
Posted by francie At 11:11:41 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Bill - you are telling the admins the admins job.... we know that stuff.. thats why we want the developers to know. But while you mention it...
Developers - if you decide to encrypt the database with your id file on the server... its your ass.
Running an update agent on every document in a database and scheduling it to run every hour is ok in test environment. Setting it to run every hour on all servers in a database that contains 65k documents is not ok.... em..mmmmmmmm your a moron!
Yes the domino server can talk to pretty much anything you want automatically, and we all respect that power, but ya see there are these things called networks... if the server doesnt have a little wire sticking out the back that in some way connects to the little hole in the back of the other server, you are screwed and the promise you gave your boss is now my promise to keep.
I have a 5Gb database that I need replicated over to the NA office... Dont mail it to them!
No you cant have manager rights to the production application. I dont care if you just passed AD1 exam.
Assuming that the admin will have no problem fixing somebody else's mess at 5.40pm on a Friday of a Bank Holiday weekend (read St Patricks weekend) is not wise. Guns are readily available you know.
A developer says he knows how to cross certify - but is having problems with the last part. I ask for the safe copy or certificate... I get it in a FAX (yes there are still faxes in the world).
The internet is a collection of tubes - not all the tubes are really big - so no we cant replicate everything every 15 minutes.
Writing an agent to delete all documents from the $servers view in the NAB and scheduling it for 3am on a Monday morning, makes for a very bad start to the week.
As Bill and I will confirm...yes, these are true. Dont worry - Just like the People's Front of Judea... we have a common enemy -the end user ! And for the record - I do like developers... just can never eat a whole one.
Posted by Paul Mooney At 15:07:22 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Rob McDonagh At 10:51:41 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Paul Mooney At 10:33:35 On 27/10/2007 | - Website - |
@13... And I'm sure I already know whatever it is you *think* you wish we knew, Francie... but go for it anyway. I'll try to be tolerant.
Posted by Duffbert At 11:26:53 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
No, I won't give you access to deploy databases.
No, you can't test in production.
No, you're not in the ACL and I like it that way.
No, the test servers aren't ever going to replicate with the production environment.
No, I won't give you access to deploy databases.
No, I am not going out with you.
No, you don't need 200 views in that app.
No, agents don't need to run for 8 minutes straight!
Posted by francie At 15:21:52 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Writing really crap code in an application using LotusScript that pasts the timeout value is not our fault..
Testing code on the test server with 5 documents in it does not make it production ready
Sandals and white socks are not a good thing
Modifying system databases is ok, as long as you document exactly what you have done so when you are gone from here, the next developer will be able to update the newer version of the templates post upgrade.
Compression of all types has a CPU hit (recent rant of mine)
Walking upright and washing are considered pretty much standard these days. ;)
We are used to saying No, as we get seasoned that way (saying yes usually means we get our ass kicked when something goes wrong and we "agreed")
You cant just upgrade your developer client to beta software and expect the new features in the code to work in your apps on the production servers
No, you cant have development rights on the production domain... If I had my way.. your right to vote would be revoked!
Want to upgrade a database design - great - here is a USB key and give me the template - I have the signer id file and the password.. you document exactly what the changes are and give it to me.
We cant run compact during the day
Replacing the design of the domino directory with the mail file template is a bad thing
ECLs - understand them and stop signing stuff with your id file!
also - we read your email
Posted by Paul Mooney At 14:11:36 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by francie At 06:35:51 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Sean Burgess At 04:43:23 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by francie At 15:22:24 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Francie Whitlock says: yes, submitted two abstracts, one with Paul Mooney
HighlyAdvancedDevelper says: don't know who that is
Francie Whitlock says: seriously? wow, I am shocked I found one person that doesn't
Francie Whitock says: ok, now that I think about why you don't know Paul Mooney I get it.... he's "just" an Admin! ;)
HighlyAdvancedDevelper: says: uh yeah, the lowest rank in the order of the IT-guys ^^
Francie Whitlock says: hey, watch it, the lowest is the Help Desk Staff!
Francie Whitlock says: we're just one step above that!
HighlyAdvancedDevelper: says: ok, ok
HighlyAdvancedDevelper: says: sorry, we're so high above it looks all the same from here *g*
Francie Whitlock says: lol, sorry, I wouldn't know
Posted by francie At 06:41:30 On 30/10/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Duffbert At 16:22:43 On 27/10/2007 | - Website - |