IBM Lotus Notes Awful

Lotus Notes release 8.5.x has to be the worst IDE I have ever used!


Let's start with opening Lotus Notes.  It takes forever when you use the 'Standard' version, basic isn't so bad but then you don't get all the new features included and looks like release 8.  It's not like I have a slow laptop I've got 4Gb of Ram and a Intel Core(TM) Duo CPU T9300, that's 2 cores at 2.5Ghz!

As a programmer I used the Designer part of Lotus Notes and this, I'm afraid, is pretty much the same.
Opening the designer can take a long time, opening any design element can also take a long time.
Then there is the applications perspective, that lists all recent databases you've worked on.  If the server is not available and you want to remove that database from the list expect to wait!  I don't know what for, it's not like I'm trying to open it I just want to remove it from the list.

Other parts of designer that are poor

• The type ahead in Lotus Script is flaky, working only when it feels like it.  Then there is the fact that it only works in Script Libraries or Agents.
• Sometimes while you are typing away at your code the cursor jumps one space backwards, so you end up with the first character in front of the cursor position.
• Pasting code in Lotus Script automatically puts the cursor at the end of the line.  Not very useful when you want to type some more after the pasted code, which happens to be in the middle of the existing code!

Release 8.5.x looks great and the type ahead is better than nothing.  However, look at Microsoft and Visual Studio, that is a absolute joy to use.  The intellisense works perfectly every time, if it doesn't then you have made a mistake in your code somewhere.  That's how good it is!

I heard a quote from someone once, "Good software goes to IBM to die".  In my opinion that is very true.  Since IBM took over with Lotus Notes it's gotten worse!  Not to mention companies are dropping it in favour of Mirosoft Exchange.
It's such a shame, because you get so much included in Lotus Notes, it's not just an e-mail program.  Ok it's not as good as a relational database but it is a heck of a lot better than Excel!  You know who you are people out there who are Excel 'whiz kids', Excel was never designed to work that way!!