Issues when developing IBM Domino Notes applications

Some minor stuff about Domino Designer.

• Undo/'Ctrl+Z' does does not work properly when you developing in Lotus Script, if you do it few times it might mess your code
• 'Ctrl+C'/'Ctrl+V' sometimes does not work from first attempt, so you need to do it twice
• 'Ctrl+C'/'Ctrl+V' sometimes it sets focus on penultimate character so you have to do 1 extra actions to continue write code
• I still have crashes in Domino Designer without any reasons and I've no customization to my Designer
• I'm not happy about speed in Designer, however maybe I expect to much

It is 2013 and Ctrl+Z still work odd, how could it be?
Do you have something to add to that list? :) Please - comments about that!

IBM Designer Java Console effect?

I've faced up with interesting problems. I'm doing integration between MailChimp and Domino application. MailChimp service has very good API so it was not huge problem to push/poll data to/from it and we already implemented solution based on Java. The fun started when I tried to do LS2J part. My first request to java method came up with this dialog

That error does not happen if I enable Java Console in IBM Domino Designer. When Console is up - everything works perfect, otherwise this error:

LS2J Error: Threw java.lang.SecurityException: not allowed to access members in class interface java.util.Map

I can't explain how Java Console affect my security level, however definitely it does. I think it possibly grant users with more access when it is running and maybe there is an explanation why. Does anybody of you can explain that?

How we cook GitHub, Jira and Jenkins with Domino

Why would I use it?

I'll describe briefly how we use GitHub, Jira and Jenkins together to make better development process. More details will come later when I get some desire :). OK, lets look what benefits we have from using these tools.

GitHub with Jenkins

GitHub has number of Service Hooks and one of them is for Jenkins. It allows to trigger build jobs when pushes are made to GitHub. You don't need to have any skill to do that, let's look on screen below. So once you made a push, Jenkins start to work.

GitHub with JIRA

It's possible to made connection between JIRA and GitHub, so once you made push to GitHub JIRA will update related ticket, you only need to specify ticket number in comments. As a result you will have history with commits directly in JIRA ticket. Let's look on ticket I've closed few days ago.

You can see what exactly have been done in order to fix the ticket. Also you can get more details if you wish, you only need to click on any of those updated files and then you will see that

Jenkins and Domino

That is most complicated part. In order to synchronize changes from GitHub to Domino application we use Jenkins (if you remember once push happens we trigger hook on Jenkins). Unfortunately there are no plugins that could do that, instead you have to write your own. That's it why we have ~60 seconds delay (I mentioned it in previous posts) after push.

Summary

For me JIRA and GitHub is de facto standard our days. Jenkins in our case is necessary to use in order to push changes from GitHub to Domino. It's a bit complicated process so you need before, if it is really what you need.

Other articles in this series

1. How we build our web applications based on Domino
2. Split back-end and front-end areas, they should not block each other and be independent as much as it is possible.
3. Front-end guys should not have any knowledge about Domino, they don't need IBM Designer installed at all.
4. Back-end guys must have knowledge about Domino, however they don't need to use IBM Designer, only in very rare cases. Backend should be done using only Java (no LS/SSJS/@Formula etc)
5. Using Git+Jira is must and Jenkins server as builder server
6. Auto-tests.

Java as backend for web applications based on Domino

Is it enough to use only Java?

Yes. Our newly created applications have been written only for web and we did all back-end with Java only (the only exclusions are selection for Views). No, we do not miss @Formula, Lotus Script or SSJS, we simply do not need those languages in our daily work. Java is better than LS/SSJS for us. You can develop much better/faster using Java and get all candies: open sources, forums, stackoverflow or even shift at some point to Java completely if it has sense for you. However, if you read my main posts I mentioned that we still had some problems while work with Java, Solution isn't really perfect and let me explain all those weakness we have right now.

• Domino has 2 Java runtimes (huge pain for us): one is for xPages and another one for Java Libraries+Agents. Java Libraries can be reuse in xPages and back JAVA/JAR are not accessible from Libraies/Agents. Our Java libraries are core for xPages and it means we have to build JAR from them and include them for xPages. It takes time and we really do not like that, it simply looks wrong. The solution is to put JAR to Domino OS, however we are limited with access to Domino's OS. Due to that fact we have one serious disadvantage - our JAR files that we attached to Libraries and Agents have to be extracted and loaded to memory each time we run agents.
• We are forced to use IBM Designer (and few of us would like to work in different IDE). As I mentioned we work via GitHub and it takes some time to build project (developer -> github -> jenkins -> domino). That's not a problem for FE, as they can do their tasks locally and after all just commit changes. BE part is located on Server so if we work without IBM Designer we have to wait 1-2 mins till changes come to it and only then we can do our tests. That's sad.

Does it mean @formula, Lotus Script, SSJS are not required to know?

Those languages are still important part of our 'old applications' and it will take years to completely re-write them to web and there should be a sense to do that, as it is time/money, @formula language is still only 1 way to make selection in Notes Views.

Pros

• open source;
• problems resolving (forums, community);
• more abilities;
• in case of migration to java platform, easy migration;

Cons

• 2 Java Runtimes
• ...

Summary

We are happy with what we have so far. We still have problems in terms of how to setup our development process. We will continue to look for perfect solution for our problems.

Other articles in this series

1. How we build our web applications based on Domino
2. Split back-end and front-end areas, they should not block each other and be independent as much as it is possible.
3. Front-end guys should not have any knowledge about Domino, they don't need IBM Designer installed at all.
4. Back-end guys must have knowledge about Domino, however they don't need to use IBM Designer, only in very rare cases. Backend should be done using only Java (no LS/SSJS/@Formula etc)
5. Using Git+Jira is must and Jenkins server as builder server
6. Auto-tests.

Frontend developers without knowledge about Domino

Do FE developers must have understanding of IBM Domino/Notes platform?

I believe they should know we use Domino as server, however that's it. Domino is server, so it is responsibility of BE developers. Few years ago when we had mixed UI and Backend in our projects each time FE developer had to do something in IBM Designer I saw such face.

I do not like such face :), one more reason why we forced our self to do what we did.

More details how FE developers works

I will try to describe workspace for typical FE developer on our project. First of all as I mentioned before they do not need IBM Designer, so they can use whatever they prefer. As all FE are located in GitHub after you import project you will get that (example from my Eclipse)

Once they commited anything to GitHub special mechanism would be triggered on our Jenkins build server and it will push all changes to Domino application.

Except many obvious benefits, any disadvantage?

Atm only 2 disadvantages:

1. It takes ~60 seconds after you commit appear in Domino application (Jenkins server has to push all changed elements from GitHub to Domino)
2. If you lost connection to internet - it's a problem (no access to GitHub)

Summary

If you do that you could get such benefits as: GitHub, freedom for FE, better mood for FE, new FE don't need to know anything about IBM Domino

Other articles in this series

1. How we build our web applications based on Domino
2. Split back-end and front-end areas, they should not block each other and be independent as much as it is possible.
3. Front-end guys should not have any knowledge about Domino, they don't need IBM Designer installed at all.
4. Back-end guys must have knowledge about Domino, however they don't need to use IBM Designer, only in very rare cases. Backend should be done using only Java (no LS/SSJS/@Formula etc)
5. Using Git+Jira is must and Jenkins server as builder server
6. Auto-tests.