OMG. I could write volumes on this one. How long do we have?...

HCL Notes/Domino 8.5 Forum (includes Notes Traveler)

Subject:

- My primary questions would be, however:

1. How did XPages make it out the door with essentially non-existent legacy code support? Sure, R8.5.2 is supposed to "fix all that", but even if it does, it should have been in place from the get-go, not over a year later and still so broken. Even if it was intentional, it should have been plainly stated, everywhere, including by Lotus support, that legacy code does not work in this version, and it will be included later. This was never done.

2. How did DDE make it out the door with so much incompatibility with legacy code? LotusScript that builds fine in all versions before DDE fails routinely in DDE. Java does the same. XPages are incompatible even between R8 minor versions, and DDE gets errors from one to the next. It's vastly superior now to what it was a year ago, but that's not the point. The point is every single version of Designer before DDE would recompile existing legacy code without issue, and DDE will not, even now.

- But perhaps that's water under the bridge. I mean, what are they going to say on the Open Mic? "Sorry!" That does no one any good.

- So let's scrap those questions. I have only one:

Is Lotus going to ensure R8.5.2 works USABLY before releasing it?

- Usably means complete and total legacy support in XPages and DDE, at least to the level the prior Designer versions have included legacy support. It means the near constant flakiness in DDE is gone; sure it'll freak out from time to time, what doesn't, but sheesh it's wonky thing. It means none of the rampant focus issues Erik is always on about. It means Pagers will show the correct last page and rowCount() will have the right value, ALL the time (bogus rowCount() makes XPage JS pretty much useless). It means ViewPanel will be usable like an actual View, or some other control will be introduced that provides data presentation flexibility without man-months of effort. It means the DDE interface placing a higher priority on what the developer is doing and typing than on than on its own background processes, like content assist, so characters appear more than one every other second. It means consistency of operation across the board instead of each panel appearing to be implemented by a different committee. It means "help" will be context-sensitive like it's been for the last thirteen years, and it doesn't always appear in an uselessly squished panel on the right of the editor window when F1 is pressed ... it appears where and how the developer left it last.

The list is literally nearly endless. Will R8.5.2 be usable? I don't mean "perfect", I mean properly usable. I'd happily wait for two more years to get properly usable, rather than have more of the same in two months.

Thank you for your time....

Feedback response number DGIE883TAR created by ~Holly Zekhipisonnivu on 08/06/2010