There are positions in the government that cannot function unless those holding the positions are protected from undue political influence.
I agree.
If a scientest cannot study important subjects, or cannot publicize the results of those subjects, out of fear of termination, then their entire purpose is frustrated.
I don't agree.
If the scientist is frustrated by his place of work, why can't he just find work elsewhere? That's what I'd do if I was frustrated by my job. Again, what's different about the scientist? That's what I don't understand.
If I go to a podium and announce something terrible, and my employer fires me... well... 1) I was in my right to exercise my right of free speech and say whatever I want. 2) My employer was in his right to terminate employment.
Nobody's done anything wrong.
Scientists aren't Supreme Court Justices, they don't set government policy. They shouldn't have any kind of 'guarantee of employment' unavailable to everyone else.
Way to utterly miss my point because of an (admittedly flawed) example. Congratulations.
Look, the major thing lacking in KDE for me is that hard-to-describe sense of polish. The little things that most projects just don't bother with. OS X has a lot of polish, and I think that's why people (in general) like it so much. One of the reason that Apple can afford more time to polish things up is that they have fewer customizability options. Fewer options means less code, less testing, and as a bonus, less confusion among your users.
Windows... not so much. (Why don't control panel windows appear on the task bar in Windows? Lack of polish. How come I can't resize the window when scrolling through a list to add a driver? Lack of polish. What's up with that 'how do you want to optimize your help file searching' wizard? All lack of polish.)
Polish is good. Gnome polish is on-par with Windows (except some really crappy error dialogs), but KDE polish isn't even close. It's at maybe Windows 98 level, not Windows XP level.
My employer has the right to fire me at any time for any reason, what's so different about a climate researcher? Does the first amendment guarantee employment? I'm pretty sure it doesn't...
I don't really see anything wrong here. Of course I'm an evil "Rethuglican McHalliburton" who isn't convinced that we should act in response to global warming, so what do I know?
The question isn't "is global warming real?" I think we ('we' being rational human beings) can all agree that it is. Even the Bush administration believes that. Basically, all this study is saying is that 71% of Americans aren't completely stupid.
If they asked, "is global warming caused by human activity?" then you might get a useful statistic.
I like name recycling. Look up the last award-winning movie with the name "Crash" and see what I mean... when my parents said they went out and rented "Crash" I did a double-take.
(which I know is possible, but your 'argument' seems to be that users should stick with default settings).
That might be his argument, but it's not mine. Mine is that, in general, nobody changes the defaults so every piece of code implementing that feature "move checkboxes three pixels to the left when using the French language on buttons with more than 3 sentences of text" is wasted code. You could instead be using that time to make something useful, like a good backup program or something. The KDE and Gnome projects are unique because the majority of their users are the minority of those who *do* change settings, but I would wager that even if they kept track of what options people actually *used*, they'd find at most 50 that people use on a regular basis and the rest were just wasted code.
My argument is about programming efficiency. I hate that "blue background white text" option in Word. Why is it there? Couldn't that time been used to make the auto-correct smarter instead, or add more languages to the dictionary?
Websites I consider valuable I go over with a little program called SiteSucker, which will spider the site so I can keep it on my own media. For instance, back when Pokey the Penguin went about 3 full years without a single update, I thought to myself what a shame it would be if all this material were lost so I made my own archive and kept it on my HD.
HD space is cheap, and I think it's well worth it to keep some to keep my favorite sites from disappearing.
Gnome has realized that 99% of users NEVER CHANGE THE DEFAULTS. Slashdotters included; why do you think so many people complain about the paperclip and auto-format in Word instead of just spending 5 seconds turning those features off? Because they don't change the defaults; very few do.
So the key, the number one most important thing is that you must have everything working and looking good by default.
Everyone who loves KDE always mentions that they love it after spending an hour twiddling with options to get it to look and behave how they like. They are a minority, a very very small minority.
Since finishing Driver's Ed I've had to parallel park exactly... zero times. I anticipate this trend to continue until I'm old, grey, and incapable of driving at all.
Yeah, I also don't get how this is Microsoft's fault, exactly. Because they provide Xbox Live Marketplace which does the credit card processing?
Anyway, unless I'm mistaken, you can 'earn' Live points by completing goals in the game, so can't you just play Oblivion itself until you've completed enough goals to afford the horse armor? Then it would be "free."
Of course, if the same was true of a Microsoft software, people would be up in arms. Somehow, Apple's software being absolutely crappy is acceptable. Hmmm.
This is Slashdot. People get up in arms even about excellent Microsoft hardware/software. (Go to the gaming section and see what people think about the Xbox 360, for instance, an excellent piece of hardware.)
But with all due respect, considering how many millions of users iTunes has, and how many billions of tracks have been purchased with it, most people don't agree with your summation that the software is 'absolutely crappy.'
Besides, you have to also admit that you're not the typical user. Who the heck organizes their music by folder while leaving the filenames and ID3 tags blank? That's goofy as hell.
Yes, but when you press F5 in Outlook, either accidentally or just experimenting with the software, you get locked out and have to enter your password to get back in. There's a big difference between that and what Outlook does when you hit F5 (which, if I recall correctly, is nothing.)
Well... If it is that important to you, you can either spend 5 minutes customising the mail template or use a whole different template (see http://www.openntf.org/) that mimics Outlook. You can even use Outlook as a client if you're so inclined. The point is that there are a lot of ways that you can actually do something about it, while with Exchange you are basically stuck. Almost every design template that is included with Lotus Domino and Notes contains the full code, including the mail template.
1) If there are better email templates out there that are more sensibly, why doesn't IBM ship them? The only possible explanation is that IBM doesn't give a crap about the usability of their software. That's enough right there for them to lose my recommendation. We give this email client out to nurses, I can guarantee they don't even know what 'template' means, much less how to switch them in Notes.
2) I might be "basically stuck" with Outlook, but at least the default configuration in Outlook *works* about 50 times better than the default. I'd rather be stuck with something that works well than have to spend 5 minutes per machine going through some arcane process to get something that (frankly) probably is still worse than Outlook.
Lotus Notes R5 (the predecessor of Notes 6) was released in 1998. Your argument holds for almost all Windows software that was released at that time (including a lot of Microsoft's own stuff). Lotus Notes implements roaming via the Domino server (just tick the "Roaming User" checkbox in the directory entry). Roaming using the standard windows roaming os a recipy for disaster since it will corrupt local settings once you log on on two locations simultaneously.
Well, then, shouldn't they FIX that bug? You're basically arguing that they don't support a long-standing OS feature because their product is buggy... not a very compelling argument.
Although, frankly, I was unaware Notes supported roaming users at all considering that I have to keep track of the stupid little ID files every time I install a new Notes user. How do you tell Domino to automatically transfer the ID file to each computer the user roams to? Usually Domino deletes the ID file from the server the first time you install the user.
Have you considered that Lotus Notes has existed way longer than 'F5=Refresh' on Windows? And that they're not Windows only? (even though they're limited to MacOS X at this point, a Linux client is well underway -- you should read up on 'Hannover'). In Lotus Notes, F9 has been the 'refresh key' for ages, so there's at least some consistency in their UI;-).
Read my complaint more carefully. It's not that F5 doesn't perform a refresh (it doesn't in Outlook, either), it's that F5 doesn't perform a refresh, then COMPLETELY CHANGES THE STATE OF THE PROGRAM and requires you to click, then type your password, then hit enter to get back where you were. That's what I mean by user-hostile: Notes shouldn't punish me (by making me type in stuff) just by trying out a function that works in most programs. If F5 did nothing at all, I'd have no complaints about it.
Have you considered that Lotus Notes has existed way longer than 'F5=Refresh' on Windows? And that they're not Windows only? (even though they're limited to MacOS X at this point, a Linux client is well underway -- you should read up on 'Hannover').
They might have a client for OS X, but have you ever tried using it? It's even worse than the Windows client, if such a thing is possible. They also have a web client that works with... IE (Windows-only), but seems to freeze every few minutes if you use any other browser. And yet one of the big features supporters of Notes always bring up is how cross-platform it is!
Look, Exchange has Outlook for Windows and Entourage for Mac OS. So it's equally compatible with Notes/Domino if you only consider that. It also has a web interface that works well
1. Notes has an odd UI with some challenges, we agree on that. Of course, that's because it was DESIGNED TO BE CROSS PLATFORM. In fact, the next rev includes a LINUX CLIENT.
It was designed to *run* on multiple platforms (which they still screwed up; why did it take so long to get a working Linux version?), but it's definitely not "cross-platform."
Firefox is cross-platform. When it's running on a Mac, the Preferences menu item goes into the application menu where it belongs. It uses sensible font sizes that mere mortals can actually read. It uses Macintosh standard keyboard shortcuts. And I consider Firefox for Mac a mediocre port... it doesn't have access to the OS X spell-checker, for instance.
Notes on Macintosh looks, feels, and runs *exactly* like Notes on Windows. (Which, BTW, isn't how a Windows application is supposed to look, feel or run.) It also helpfully decides to use microscopic 8-point fonts all over the place that nobody can read.
So, given all these things -- every one of which is something in general/.'ers scream for, WHAT IS THE F'ING PROBLEM?
Have you ever tried to USE it? Have you ever just looked at Notes' main menu and said, "holy shit this app looks ugly?" The calendar doesn't work; it loses meetings all the time. It doesn't sync with any handhelds out there unless you buy IBM's EasySyncPro and EasySyncPro randomly fails about once a week with mysterious errors that can only be solved by forcing a full synchronization (which takes several minutes.) When you hit F5 to refresh your mail, Notes locks you out for no apparent reason. It takes up to a FULL MINUTE to open an email on my 1.7 ghz, 512 MB RAM PC at work if it gets swapped out of RAM. Nobody can figure out how to do basic tasks like changing the password or setting up a mail rule. Settings are grouped in the most moronic fashion ever... how come my preferred browser for viewing HTML mail is in the "Location" setting but the interval for checking for new mail is in "User Settings?" Also, have you ever seen Lotus Notes attempt to render HTML? It's pathetic. If there's an error in a script you'll see a dialog that reads "Error: Object cannot update Property" and Notes won't tell you *which* object or *which* property, making it entirely impossible to debug anything.
Note has compelling features. All of them are implemented in a confusing and half-assed fashion.
Users hate Notes. Admins hate Notes. There are only two types of people who like Notes: 1) IBM salesmen who talk CFOs (generally ones who don't even use email) into buying it and making huge commissions 2) Notes developers. And I think that's more a case of Stockholm Syndrome than anything else.
Do you honestly think the OS X Notes client (which is a direct port of the Windows client without any OS X-specific features/modifications) is better than Entourage? Honestly? Seriously?
Well, IBM stopped sending us new versions of the client despite our support contract being active, so I haven't had a chance to try 7... we're still stuck on 6.5. I can't imagine it's improved much.
But even if you're using 7, you have to think to yourself: "It took them until version 7 before Notes could sort by subject line? One of the MOST BASIC FUNCTIONS of a list box, and Notes couldn't manage it without 6 revisions?" Mail.app from Apple could sort by subject line in version 1.0... amazing!
It only took until Notes version 6 for it to cleanly support multi-user OSes also. Windows NT had only been out, what, a DECADE, before Notes decided to support it? Oh, but it still puts its own data in Local Settings, so if you want to use Roaming Profiles and Notes, you're SOL.
But my major gripe is that F5 doesn't refresh. Not only does it not refresh, but pressing the key (expecting it to refresh) actually locks you out of the product and you have to re-enter the password to get back in. It's not just a bad user interface, it's actually user-hostile.
And how much productivity have you lost due to people having to call IS every time they want to change their password because it's hard-as-hell to figure out how to do it? What about the angry calls you get when Notes gets confused and deletes emails you didn't intend to? (Sometimes Notes makes 'shortcuts' to emails when you move them into folders instead of copying the mail; then you delete it from your inbox and the email in the folder disappears also.)
How much time is spent managing email folders and rules that other email clients do automatically? How much money wasted on training users to know what "replication" is and when to use it? Heck, how much time is wasted in a year from the 45-50 seconds it takes Notes to even *display* an email if it had the misfortune of being swapped out of RAM?
How many meetings are missed when Notes' calendars get corrupt and stop sending out reminders? Or if you get one of those fun meetings that actually ends *before* it begins, because Notes doesn't even do the most basic sanity-checking on incoming data? How about the extra cost to make your Palms, Blackberries, and PocketPCs work with Notes, and the lost time having to use "Force Full Synchroniztion" in EasySyncPro every week?
Sorry, Domino might be solid, but that doesn't excuse all the other flaws in the product. And if you add it all up, it's just not worth it. It's not worth the cost, it's not worth the stress.
Ask your users if they like using Notes. Seriously. You'll be surprised at all the colorful replies you receive.
Notes is, by a wide margin, the worst email client I've ever used. The most normal and hum-drum activities in other email clients are either impossible in Notes (sorting email by subject line, for example), or grossly complicated and unreliable (setting up a forwarding rule, for example-- then watch it continue to run for hours after you delete the rule!)
I'm working at an IBM shop right now, meaning that we use Notes for email, and everybody hates it. The users hate it because it's difficult to use. The network administrator hates it because it's a pain in the ass to do simple tasks like, for example, changing a user's name. The accounting department hates it because it's expensive.
And yes, this is where the Notes supporters will chime in to remind me that Notes is more than just an email client-- it's also a network-aware database host ala Access. Except there's two major problems with this: 1) IBM advertises that Notes is an email client. 2) It's a crappy DB host also.
Look, supporting Linux is one thing, but nobody should be supporting Notes. If the free market worked at all in the computing industry, this program would have died out years ago because it's too crappy for anybody to purchase. If you want to support Linux, do it in such a way that you're not also supporting a horrible piece of software like Notes.
As an aside, why do all groupware products suck? Groupwise sucks. Domino/Notes sucks. Exchange/Outlook sucks. Why doesn't someone like Adobe create a groupware product to completely blow these suckers away?
There are a ton of people on Slashdot who believe that companies like Microsoft hire PR people specifically to post in forums in support of their products, and discount the possibility that, hey, maybe there are some people out there in the wide universe who actually like Windows and Office.
Here's a serious question: Where the hell do I get one of these jobs? Talk about cushy!
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen that episode of Futurama! No mirrors for me, thank you very much.
As far as I know, Ali G used it first while interviewing Buzz Aldrin. At least, that's the first I heard that joke...
There are positions in the government that cannot function unless those holding the positions are protected from undue political influence.
I agree.
If a scientest cannot study important subjects, or cannot publicize the results of those subjects, out of fear of termination, then their entire purpose is frustrated.
I don't agree.
If the scientist is frustrated by his place of work, why can't he just find work elsewhere? That's what I'd do if I was frustrated by my job. Again, what's different about the scientist? That's what I don't understand.
If I go to a podium and announce something terrible, and my employer fires me... well...
1) I was in my right to exercise my right of free speech and say whatever I want.
2) My employer was in his right to terminate employment.
Nobody's done anything wrong.
Scientists aren't Supreme Court Justices, they don't set government policy. They shouldn't have any kind of 'guarantee of employment' unavailable to everyone else.
I live in Western Washington. Pretty much everyone here knows someone who can get them a deal on Windows through the Microsoft Employee Store.
Way to utterly miss my point because of an (admittedly flawed) example. Congratulations.
Look, the major thing lacking in KDE for me is that hard-to-describe sense of polish. The little things that most projects just don't bother with. OS X has a lot of polish, and I think that's why people (in general) like it so much. One of the reason that Apple can afford more time to polish things up is that they have fewer customizability options. Fewer options means less code, less testing, and as a bonus, less confusion among your users.
Windows... not so much. (Why don't control panel windows appear on the task bar in Windows? Lack of polish. How come I can't resize the window when scrolling through a list to add a driver? Lack of polish. What's up with that 'how do you want to optimize your help file searching' wizard? All lack of polish.)
Polish is good. Gnome polish is on-par with Windows (except some really crappy error dialogs), but KDE polish isn't even close. It's at maybe Windows 98 level, not Windows XP level.
My employer has the right to fire me at any time for any reason, what's so different about a climate researcher? Does the first amendment guarantee employment? I'm pretty sure it doesn't...
I don't really see anything wrong here. Of course I'm an evil "Rethuglican McHalliburton" who isn't convinced that we should act in response to global warming, so what do I know?
That question is flawed.
The question isn't "is global warming real?" I think we ('we' being rational human beings) can all agree that it is. Even the Bush administration believes that. Basically, all this study is saying is that 71% of Americans aren't completely stupid.
If they asked, "is global warming caused by human activity?" then you might get a useful statistic.
I like name recycling. Look up the last award-winning movie with the name "Crash" and see what I mean... when my parents said they went out and rented "Crash" I did a double-take.
(which I know is possible, but your 'argument' seems to be that users should stick with default settings).
That might be his argument, but it's not mine. Mine is that, in general, nobody changes the defaults so every piece of code implementing that feature "move checkboxes three pixels to the left when using the French language on buttons with more than 3 sentences of text" is wasted code. You could instead be using that time to make something useful, like a good backup program or something. The KDE and Gnome projects are unique because the majority of their users are the minority of those who *do* change settings, but I would wager that even if they kept track of what options people actually *used*, they'd find at most 50 that people use on a regular basis and the rest were just wasted code.
My argument is about programming efficiency. I hate that "blue background white text" option in Word. Why is it there? Couldn't that time been used to make the auto-correct smarter instead, or add more languages to the dictionary?
Websites I consider valuable I go over with a little program called SiteSucker, which will spider the site so I can keep it on my own media. For instance, back when Pokey the Penguin went about 3 full years without a single update, I thought to myself what a shame it would be if all this material were lost so I made my own archive and kept it on my HD.
HD space is cheap, and I think it's well worth it to keep some to keep my favorite sites from disappearing.
The difference is this:
Gnome has realized that 99% of users NEVER CHANGE THE DEFAULTS. Slashdotters included; why do you think so many people complain about the paperclip and auto-format in Word instead of just spending 5 seconds turning those features off? Because they don't change the defaults; very few do.
So the key, the number one most important thing is that you must have everything working and looking good by default.
Everyone who loves KDE always mentions that they love it after spending an hour twiddling with options to get it to look and behave how they like. They are a minority, a very very small minority.
Since finishing Driver's Ed I've had to parallel park exactly... zero times. I anticipate this trend to continue until I'm old, grey, and incapable of driving at all.
the history of GNU, why it exists and where it is going.
Ok, you've piqued my interest.
Where is GNU going?
Yeah, I also don't get how this is Microsoft's fault, exactly. Because they provide Xbox Live Marketplace which does the credit card processing?
Anyway, unless I'm mistaken, you can 'earn' Live points by completing goals in the game, so can't you just play Oblivion itself until you've completed enough goals to afford the horse armor? Then it would be "free."
Of course, if the same was true of a Microsoft software, people would be up in arms. Somehow, Apple's software being absolutely crappy is acceptable. Hmmm.
This is Slashdot. People get up in arms even about excellent Microsoft hardware/software. (Go to the gaming section and see what people think about the Xbox 360, for instance, an excellent piece of hardware.)
But with all due respect, considering how many millions of users iTunes has, and how many billions of tracks have been purchased with it, most people don't agree with your summation that the software is 'absolutely crappy.'
Besides, you have to also admit that you're not the typical user. Who the heck organizes their music by folder while leaving the filenames and ID3 tags blank? That's goofy as hell.
Yes, but when you press F5 in Outlook, either accidentally or just experimenting with the software, you get locked out and have to enter your password to get back in. There's a big difference between that and what Outlook does when you hit F5 (which, if I recall correctly, is nothing.)
Well... If it is that important to you, you can either spend 5 minutes customising the mail template or use a whole different template (see http://www.openntf.org/) that mimics Outlook. You can even use Outlook as a client if you're so inclined.
;-).
The point is that there are a lot of ways that you can actually do something about it, while with Exchange you are basically stuck. Almost every design template that is included with Lotus Domino and Notes contains the full code, including the mail template.
1) If there are better email templates out there that are more sensibly, why doesn't IBM ship them? The only possible explanation is that IBM doesn't give a crap about the usability of their software. That's enough right there for them to lose my recommendation. We give this email client out to nurses, I can guarantee they don't even know what 'template' means, much less how to switch them in Notes.
2) I might be "basically stuck" with Outlook, but at least the default configuration in Outlook *works* about 50 times better than the default. I'd rather be stuck with something that works well than have to spend 5 minutes per machine going through some arcane process to get something that (frankly) probably is still worse than Outlook.
Lotus Notes R5 (the predecessor of Notes 6) was released in 1998. Your argument holds for almost all Windows software that was released at that time (including a lot of Microsoft's own stuff).
Lotus Notes implements roaming via the Domino server (just tick the "Roaming User" checkbox in the directory entry). Roaming using the standard windows roaming os a recipy for disaster since it will corrupt local settings once you log on on two locations simultaneously.
Well, then, shouldn't they FIX that bug? You're basically arguing that they don't support a long-standing OS feature because their product is buggy... not a very compelling argument.
Although, frankly, I was unaware Notes supported roaming users at all considering that I have to keep track of the stupid little ID files every time I install a new Notes user. How do you tell Domino to automatically transfer the ID file to each computer the user roams to? Usually Domino deletes the ID file from the server the first time you install the user.
Have you considered that Lotus Notes has existed way longer than 'F5=Refresh' on Windows? And that they're not Windows only? (even though they're limited to MacOS X at this point, a Linux client is well underway -- you should read up on 'Hannover'). In Lotus Notes, F9 has been the 'refresh key' for ages, so there's at least some consistency in their UI
Read my complaint more carefully. It's not that F5 doesn't perform a refresh (it doesn't in Outlook, either), it's that F5 doesn't perform a refresh, then COMPLETELY CHANGES THE STATE OF THE PROGRAM and requires you to click, then type your password, then hit enter to get back where you were. That's what I mean by user-hostile: Notes shouldn't punish me (by making me type in stuff) just by trying out a function that works in most programs. If F5 did nothing at all, I'd have no complaints about it.
Have you considered that Lotus Notes has existed way longer than 'F5=Refresh' on Windows? And that they're not Windows only? (even though they're limited to MacOS X at this point, a Linux client is well underway -- you should read up on 'Hannover').
They might have a client for OS X, but have you ever tried using it? It's even worse than the Windows client, if such a thing is possible. They also have a web client that works with... IE (Windows-only), but seems to freeze every few minutes if you use any other browser. And yet one of the big features supporters of Notes always bring up is how cross-platform it is!
Look, Exchange has Outlook for Windows and Entourage for Mac OS. So it's equally compatible with Notes/Domino if you only consider that. It also has a web interface that works well
1. Notes has an odd UI with some challenges, we agree on that. Of course, that's because it was DESIGNED TO BE CROSS PLATFORM. In fact, the next rev includes a LINUX CLIENT.
/.'ers scream for, WHAT IS THE F'ING PROBLEM?
t es-sucks.html
It was designed to *run* on multiple platforms (which they still screwed up; why did it take so long to get a working Linux version?), but it's definitely not "cross-platform."
Firefox is cross-platform. When it's running on a Mac, the Preferences menu item goes into the application menu where it belongs. It uses sensible font sizes that mere mortals can actually read. It uses Macintosh standard keyboard shortcuts. And I consider Firefox for Mac a mediocre port... it doesn't have access to the OS X spell-checker, for instance.
Notes on Macintosh looks, feels, and runs *exactly* like Notes on Windows. (Which, BTW, isn't how a Windows application is supposed to look, feel or run.) It also helpfully decides to use microscopic 8-point fonts all over the place that nobody can read.
So, given all these things -- every one of which is something in general
Have you ever tried to USE it? Have you ever just looked at Notes' main menu and said, "holy shit this app looks ugly?" The calendar doesn't work; it loses meetings all the time. It doesn't sync with any handhelds out there unless you buy IBM's EasySyncPro and EasySyncPro randomly fails about once a week with mysterious errors that can only be solved by forcing a full synchronization (which takes several minutes.) When you hit F5 to refresh your mail, Notes locks you out for no apparent reason. It takes up to a FULL MINUTE to open an email on my 1.7 ghz, 512 MB RAM PC at work if it gets swapped out of RAM. Nobody can figure out how to do basic tasks like changing the password or setting up a mail rule. Settings are grouped in the most moronic fashion ever... how come my preferred browser for viewing HTML mail is in the "Location" setting but the interval for checking for new mail is in "User Settings?" Also, have you ever seen Lotus Notes attempt to render HTML? It's pathetic. If there's an error in a script you'll see a dialog that reads "Error: Object cannot update Property" and Notes won't tell you *which* object or *which* property, making it entirely impossible to debug anything.
Note has compelling features. All of them are implemented in a confusing and half-assed fashion.
Users hate Notes. Admins hate Notes. There are only two types of people who like Notes:
1) IBM salesmen who talk CFOs (generally ones who don't even use email) into buying it and making huge commissions
2) Notes developers. And I think that's more a case of Stockholm Syndrome than anything else.
See this blog for only a small sampling of things Lotus Notes sucks at: http://damienkatz.net/2005/02/70-reasons-lotus-no
Do you honestly think the OS X Notes client (which is a direct port of the Windows client without any OS X-specific features/modifications) is better than Entourage? Honestly? Seriously?
I don't see how that's possible. At all.
Or hit F9. (F5 won't refresh like you expect, it'll actually lock you out.)
Well, IBM stopped sending us new versions of the client despite our support contract being active, so I haven't had a chance to try 7... we're still stuck on 6.5. I can't imagine it's improved much.
But even if you're using 7, you have to think to yourself: "It took them until version 7 before Notes could sort by subject line? One of the MOST BASIC FUNCTIONS of a list box, and Notes couldn't manage it without 6 revisions?" Mail.app from Apple could sort by subject line in version 1.0... amazing!
It only took until Notes version 6 for it to cleanly support multi-user OSes also. Windows NT had only been out, what, a DECADE, before Notes decided to support it? Oh, but it still puts its own data in Local Settings, so if you want to use Roaming Profiles and Notes, you're SOL.
But my major gripe is that F5 doesn't refresh. Not only does it not refresh, but pressing the key (expecting it to refresh) actually locks you out of the product and you have to re-enter the password to get back in. It's not just a bad user interface, it's actually user-hostile.
And how much productivity have you lost due to people having to call IS every time they want to change their password because it's hard-as-hell to figure out how to do it? What about the angry calls you get when Notes gets confused and deletes emails you didn't intend to? (Sometimes Notes makes 'shortcuts' to emails when you move them into folders instead of copying the mail; then you delete it from your inbox and the email in the folder disappears also.)
How much time is spent managing email folders and rules that other email clients do automatically? How much money wasted on training users to know what "replication" is and when to use it? Heck, how much time is wasted in a year from the 45-50 seconds it takes Notes to even *display* an email if it had the misfortune of being swapped out of RAM?
How many meetings are missed when Notes' calendars get corrupt and stop sending out reminders? Or if you get one of those fun meetings that actually ends *before* it begins, because Notes doesn't even do the most basic sanity-checking on incoming data? How about the extra cost to make your Palms, Blackberries, and PocketPCs work with Notes, and the lost time having to use "Force Full Synchroniztion" in EasySyncPro every week?
Sorry, Domino might be solid, but that doesn't excuse all the other flaws in the product. And if you add it all up, it's just not worth it. It's not worth the cost, it's not worth the stress.
Ask your users if they like using Notes. Seriously. You'll be surprised at all the colorful replies you receive.
Notes is, by a wide margin, the worst email client I've ever used. The most normal and hum-drum activities in other email clients are either impossible in Notes (sorting email by subject line, for example), or grossly complicated and unreliable (setting up a forwarding rule, for example-- then watch it continue to run for hours after you delete the rule!)
I'm working at an IBM shop right now, meaning that we use Notes for email, and everybody hates it. The users hate it because it's difficult to use. The network administrator hates it because it's a pain in the ass to do simple tasks like, for example, changing a user's name. The accounting department hates it because it's expensive.
And yes, this is where the Notes supporters will chime in to remind me that Notes is more than just an email client-- it's also a network-aware database host ala Access. Except there's two major problems with this:
1) IBM advertises that Notes is an email client.
2) It's a crappy DB host also.
Look, supporting Linux is one thing, but nobody should be supporting Notes. If the free market worked at all in the computing industry, this program would have died out years ago because it's too crappy for anybody to purchase. If you want to support Linux, do it in such a way that you're not also supporting a horrible piece of software like Notes.
As an aside, why do all groupware products suck? Groupwise sucks. Domino/Notes sucks. Exchange/Outlook sucks. Why doesn't someone like Adobe create a groupware product to completely blow these suckers away?
There are a ton of people on Slashdot who believe that companies like Microsoft hire PR people specifically to post in forums in support of their products, and discount the possibility that, hey, maybe there are some people out there in the wide universe who actually like Windows and Office.
Here's a serious question: Where the hell do I get one of these jobs? Talk about cushy!
Just wait for a few hours. There's no penalty to waiting and you can do it anywhere.