Re: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ?
Jean-Denis Girard wrote: > > Hi dear modperlers, > > We have a client here willing to use Domino to serve > his Web site. > I started considering Domino a while ago. My conclusion was to flee from it. I haven't used it and these were the opinions of real programmers that used it. I'll try to recall things they told me ; - It uses a lot of CPU and RAM, if you think mod_perl eats RAM, you've never used domino. I've seen this happening in intranet with around 1000 users. They had to install alphas with NT. - It does not farming. If you install domino you'll end up having a lot of domains, one for every section of your web, each one in a server. Your users will go crazy searching dead links and asking you what server holds now the pages they were using. Because you'll start moving databases to a new server as soon as the older started die of resources. - Amazing lack of features, the API to the web server maybe exists but no developer I talked to knew nothing about sending headers, internal redirects and so. I was comparing to mod_perl, and HTML::Mason, the dhandler and autohander stuff was very important for me and I wanted something like this. I didn't find it. - It does not SQL, building an application for the web with domino takes a big effort of analising, programming and maintaining. A thing that would be very easy with a SQL database can be very hard or impossible to do with domino. I was told is hard to feed such a database from 3rd party data. And if you must add more data again to domino is harder again. - It's impossible to separate content from formatting. - You don't embed a language in HTML, you ask domino about inserting html inside your code. My conclusion was it's no good for web programming. I went to a super human software lotus show and it was very disapointing, a lot of vapourware. I thought it must be very bad when they admitted nested tables didn't work at all in domino 4.x, and started working at 5.0. In addition I must say mod_perl has a lot of features never dreamed by people that use Domino or IIS+ASP. I have asked to other programmers friends of mine who use these platforms, no one uses mod_perl and they think their tools are far better than mine and easier to use. I quit advocacing mod_perl. For every feature they lack, they have work arounds or don't use it. -- - frankie -
Re: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ?
Gunther Birznieks wrote: > Why do you need to settle on one or the other? > > Anyway, the only reason you need Domino IMHO is because you have linked in > with other Lotus notes applications. However, if this is a public site not > an intranet, I would strongly urge them not to use this short cut for > putting apps out there. Lotus Notes apps are badly slapped together front > ends on top of apps written on another computing paradigm (client > server)... which don't mix well. > I wholeheartedly agree. The only reason to even consider using Domino for a web site is if the company in question already has a lot of Notes applications and don't want to port them to something else. If they're only considering using Domino, tell them "DON'T." > > However, if that argument is not being listened to, you can use the > engineering tact. Sneak apache in there with mod_proxy and mod_rewrite and > follow Stas' guide on having backend versus front end servers. Even if they insist on using Domino, using Apache as the front-end is highly desirable, because Domino is relatively slow (compared to Apache) and web sites running from Apache will be *much* easier to deal with in the long run. After having used Domino in my organization, I must say that if I had to do it again, I wouldn't. To get what I needed done, I ended up writing a Java servlet, and Domino's Java servlet engine is much inferior to, well, practically everything else. Unless you're planning to mass migrate practically *everything* to Notes apps, Domino is just *too much* for your typical web site.
Re: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ?
Why do you need to settle on one or the other? Anyway, the only reason you need Domino IMHO is because you have linked in with other Lotus notes applications. However, if this is a public site not an intranet, I would strongly urge them not to use this short cut for putting apps out there. Lotus Notes apps are badly slapped together front ends on top of apps written on another computing paradigm (client server)... which don't mix well. However, if that argument is not being listened to, you can use the engineering tact. Sneak apache in there with mod_proxy and mod_rewrite and follow Stas' guide on having backend versus front end servers. Use apache on the front end (and an optional backend for mod_perl) and Lotus notes as a backend server. This has the advantage of allowing the domino server to scale better since it will only be hit for domino app-like things rather than images which can be cached by the front-end server. This includes security advantages in that Lotus Notes server, being so bloated with app code) is not something you might want directly exposed to the Internet. Anyway, I've been at two largish organizations in the last 4 years that wanted to switch away from Notes to the Web. One was early enough. The other was too late as their infrastructure was already dedicated to it and it was very hard to convert all the apps because the requirements that went into building the apps were organic and never written down-- so a web rewrite would have involved a lot of analysis. In the end, that company did switch off of Notes in a major way though but it was done in pockets and done very gradually over the course of a year -- and they still are not completely off of it. If Notes is used in an Intranet, I see no reason to rewrite everything for the web from scratch with today's shortage of IT personnel. And it will give the Notes developers the capability to start learning how a web server works so that they can slowly train themselves up on other technologies... One thing to understand, is a lot of the time notes admins are really secretaries, ex-mail administrators, etc... that also double as form builders and data entry clerks. So it isn't so easy or instant to convert these pseudo-IT people into web people with a point and click and installing an apache server. You don't want to piss these people off either. They are [a] close to the data and [b] usually close to the business that creates the data (and a business person can usually override an IT person in any organization). A lot of training and hand holding is required to get buy-in from these pseudo-IT people -- on the surface they are not powerful, but they do form a strong current. Later, Gunther At 08:36 AM 4/23/00 -1000, you wrote: >Hi dear modperlers, > >We have a client here willing to use Domino to serve >his Web site. > >The site should not be very busy (we expect about 15000 >hits per day), but is relatively complex, with database >integration, visitors tracking, customers logins, SSL... > >As anyone on the list already used this strange beast ? > >What could I say to this client to make him change his >mind, apart from obvious reasons (price, closed and >proprietary solution, nobody uses it, less than 1% on >the Internet). > >Thanks for any response. > >Jean-Denis Girard >Essential Software
Re: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ?
The usual reasons: I bet they use lotus notes internally for everything, and domino is the only choice for those companies that have chained themselves^h^h^h^h made a strategic decision to go notes. -Justin On Sun, Apr 23, 2000 at 02:24:20PM -0400, gnielson wrote: > I am just curious why they are fixated on Domino to start with? > What are their concerns? > > On Sun, 23 Apr 2000, Jean-Denis Girard wrote: > > > Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 08:36:45 -1000 > > From: Jean-Denis Girard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > To: mod-perl Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ? > > > > Hi dear modperlers, > > > > We have a client here willing to use Domino to serve > > his Web site. > > > > The site should not be very busy (we expect about 15000 > > hits per day), but is relatively complex, with database > > integration, visitors tracking, customers logins, SSL... > > > > As anyone on the list already used this strange beast ? > > > > What could I say to this client to make him change his > > mind, apart from obvious reasons (price, closed and > > proprietary solution, nobody uses it, less than 1% on > > the Internet). > > > > Thanks for any response. > > > > Jean-Denis Girard > > Essential Software > > -- Justin Beech --- http://www.dslreports.com Phone:212 269 7052 x252 : 212 706 9129 (home) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://dslreports.com/contacts
Re: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ?
I am just curious why they are fixated on Domino to start with? What are their concerns? On Sun, 23 Apr 2000, Jean-Denis Girard wrote: > Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 08:36:45 -1000 > From: Jean-Denis Girard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: mod-perl Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [OT] Lotus Domino as Web server ? > > Hi dear modperlers, > > We have a client here willing to use Domino to serve > his Web site. > > The site should not be very busy (we expect about 15000 > hits per day), but is relatively complex, with database > integration, visitors tracking, customers logins, SSL... > > As anyone on the list already used this strange beast ? > > What could I say to this client to make him change his > mind, apart from obvious reasons (price, closed and > proprietary solution, nobody uses it, less than 1% on > the Internet). > > Thanks for any response. > > Jean-Denis Girard > Essential Software >
