The best Notes/Domino analogy I've seen in a long time...
Category IBM/Lotus
Over at CodeStore, there's been a couple of threads that have turned into a whine-fest about how bad Domino is, how IBM doesn't listen, yada, yada, yada. Personally, I haven't had the emotional energy to engage there, as it's one of those threads that just seems to polarize and tick people off.
However, Ben Langhinrichs had an analogy in the comments that is classic and priceless...
Jake - Actually, your situation in many way mirrors the general corporate reality with respect to Notes/Domino. If we were all young and single and without responsibilities, we could bounce on over to the "next big thing" or the "latest cool technology", and we all wish that IBM could keep up and incorporate all those fresh new ideas, but we have dependents (employees and stockholders) with demands and needs, and we need to do the sensible thing. Notes/Domino in general is not always that much fun, and it certainly isn't that cool, but it does all the sensible, pragmatic stuff which we need to do, even if it is a bit stodgy or convoluted at times. To use an analogy that might be more obvious to the ladies, it is like wearing sensible shoes instead of fashionable shoes. They may not be as much fun, and few people will envy us, but there is a reason they are sensible.
This is not to say that, as you have shown many times, you can't make the sensible shoes look fancy when the occasion calls for it (e.g., AJAX or tag clouds or whatever in Domino web development). You just have to try harder, and it sucks that you can't just get flash out of the box, but such is the way of sensible stuff. The opposing point of view is that when everybody has moved on to the next cool technology, Notes/Domino will be just as unable to support it out of the box, but still robust enough to make it happen. Just sensible, even if not always exciting.
Thanks, Ben... you nailed it.
Over at CodeStore, there's been a couple of threads that have turned into a whine-fest about how bad Domino is, how IBM doesn't listen, yada, yada, yada. Personally, I haven't had the emotional energy to engage there, as it's one of those threads that just seems to polarize and tick people off.
However, Ben Langhinrichs had an analogy in the comments that is classic and priceless...
Jake - Actually, your situation in many way mirrors the general corporate reality with respect to Notes/Domino. If we were all young and single and without responsibilities, we could bounce on over to the "next big thing" or the "latest cool technology", and we all wish that IBM could keep up and incorporate all those fresh new ideas, but we have dependents (employees and stockholders) with demands and needs, and we need to do the sensible thing. Notes/Domino in general is not always that much fun, and it certainly isn't that cool, but it does all the sensible, pragmatic stuff which we need to do, even if it is a bit stodgy or convoluted at times. To use an analogy that might be more obvious to the ladies, it is like wearing sensible shoes instead of fashionable shoes. They may not be as much fun, and few people will envy us, but there is a reason they are sensible.
This is not to say that, as you have shown many times, you can't make the sensible shoes look fancy when the occasion calls for it (e.g., AJAX or tag clouds or whatever in Domino web development). You just have to try harder, and it sucks that you can't just get flash out of the box, but such is the way of sensible stuff. The opposing point of view is that when everybody has moved on to the next cool technology, Notes/Domino will be just as unable to support it out of the box, but still robust enough to make it happen. Just sensible, even if not always exciting.
Thanks, Ben... you nailed it.
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Posted by Ben Langhinrichs At 13:24:10 On 22/11/2006 | - Website - |