Wednesday, April 25, 2007

how important is LotusScript?

Is JavaScript good enough, or is it important for LCD to think about what it would take to support LotusScript? Is it better to support LotusScript or other languages such as PHP, etc?

Inquiring minds want to know :-)

16 comments:

Brian Guthrie said...

You could always integrate JRuby. <grin>

Kidding. My concern would keeping the server-side and client-side scripting consistent. LCD components are, at least when deployed to Portal, essentially web applications. If you were to add support for LotusScript on the server side of the application, would you then have to support LotusScript on the client side as well? Reasons to so do: reduce confusion, avoid the problem of components that contain scripts written in two separate languages.

If so, you need a LS->JS compiler; maybe one exists already. I would not be surprised to learn that Philippe had already written such a thing, like, a hundred years ago.

Brian Guthrie said...

I'd just like to chime in again to say that I don't think there's any need to integrate PHP. PHP has a fairly narrow scope and I don't think it's particularly helpful as a general-purpose programming language.

LCD components would benefit much more from either LotusScript, for obvious reasons, or Perl or a nicer child of it, like Python or (I know, I know) Ruby, both of which have reasonably mature Java runtime implementations.

Anonymous said...

From what I understand, IBM wrote the jvm hosted javascript in LCD (didn't use Rhino for licensing reasons). Would these other languages be jvm hosted/compiled to bytecode? I can think of at least one other Lotus product where lotusscript on the jvm might be welcome.

I personally prefer groovy since jython is so far behind and Sun owns the JRuby folks. Groovy has most of the ruby goodies and uses java types which makes it a great language for learning the JVM, java types and libraries.


PHP? Just say "No!"

Anonymous said...

I'd say LS is essential, not only for us who already "speaks" it but also it's easy "to get" for newbies. Maybe if other languages were available the platform would get a broader audience, but i think LS + Java is enough.

More important would be to get a real dev-environment with checkin/out and code-versioning and memory-resident programs like servlets. These things lacks today when you are building big sites/applications!

Anonymous said...

Agree with anonymous 100%...

Don McNally said...

I vote for LotusScript as well. Maybe I'm lazy but it would be far easier to get started if I didn't have to learn another language.

Anonymous said...

Go with Javascript or Ruby, and Java. Everything else can be left behind. Keep it simple, but make it powerful. And like someone said before, make sure debugging, check-in/out, intellisense, etc is fully implemented.

Anonymous said...

I vote for LotusScript as well

Anonymous said...

Do you want adoption (current customers who will start using it) or acceptance (new customers/press who think it is inline with the future but may not ever buy/use it)?

If you are looking for adoption, include LS; if acceptance then pick JS and at least two other scripting languages (Python and Ruby would be my choices)

Anonymous said...

I think LotusScript is essential, assuming you want LCD to succeed and be used by the Lotus community.

Anonymous said...

Go with Java and JavaScript :o)

Anonymous said...

Lotusscript & java for server side,

javascript & yui or ext framework for thin client side.

I'm wainting for Eclipse Domino Designer, hoping that oo navigator would be higly tunned.

William Beh said...

LotusScript is for server side while javascript is use for the client side. So far, I think LotusScript is very well documented with examples thus making it easier to learn. The debugging tool for LotusScript needs to improve though. Javascript have grown to be a powerful language. With Ajax, Mashup, etc, leveraging on Javascript, user interface and user experience have improved. Javascript is definitely a language to learn.

Anonymous said...

I would suggest an enhanced version of LotusScript (Garnet anyone), for a number of reasons:

a) It would allow to add missing features in LS like reflection, interfaces etc (since hosting the language in a JVM would allow streamlining it and porting it back to Domino ??)

b) Domino Designer folks will feel at home

c) New programmers get it easily

d) VBScript (ASP) Programmers will feel at home, giving them an option.

For other languages (Ruby, Phython, Tabaluga etc.) I don't have an opinion, so if there are good reasons for them, why not.

:-) stw

Pinot Noir said...

As IBM keeps saying it was LCD's goal to be easy to grasp for the Domino developer. If you really mean it you can't omit LotusScript support!
None of the above mentioned languages is adopted by the Domino developer community apart from JavaScript and (of course) Java. A clear "No"w to php, ruby, etc.

Pipalia said...

I vote for lotus-script as well. One of my mentor said something very powerful to me a couple of years ago: Why change something that works!