JMP102 The Top Things All New IBM Lotus Domino Developers Need To KnowKathy Brown | Application DeveloperThomas “Duffbert” Duff | Application Developer

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Agenda● Coding Best Practices● Application Architecture

● Languages and Features

● Learning

● User Interface

● Everything Else

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For the love of all that is holy...Option Declare

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OR

prevents...

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Comment Your Code(even the Matrix will have errors somewhere...)

Better than nothing...

... Better still

File > Preferences >

Domino Designer > LotusScript Editor >

Comment Templates

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Error Handling... do it!

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Example #1

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Option PublicOption DeclareUse "OpenLogFunctions"

Sub Initialize

Dim session As New NotesSession Dim dbThis As NotesDatabase Dim viewThis As NotesView Dim docThis As NotesDocument Dim dtCutoffDate As NotesDateTime Dim varCutoffDate As Variant

On Error Goto logError Call LogEvent("Purge Older Than 4 Months Agent Started", SEVERITY_LOW, Nothing) ' <insert your agent code here>

Call LogEvent("Purge Older Than 4 Months Agent Ended", SEVERITY_LOW, Nothing) Exit Sub

logError: Call LogError Exit Sub

End Sub

Example #2OpenLog

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All it takes are these two libraries to give you what you see below...

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Thank you, Julian Robichaux, for OpenLoghttp://www.openntf.org/projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/OpenLog

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No Hard Coding... EVER!

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Users never change their minds, right?

Can you change “Mommie Dearest” to “Mommy Dearest” in all field options?

Jones made partner. We’ve changed the company name. Again.

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Good code can be re-used

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Hard coding Server Names -

It's the opposite of that sports slogan,

Just Don't Do It.

(we'll explain why later...)

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Test, Test, Test!

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●Things to consider: Print statements in LotusScript

@Prompt statements in Formula

alert() in JavaScript

LotusScript debugger (more to follow on that)

Don't test your own code

Test edge cases

Load test... with more than 20 documents!

Unfortunately, no xUnit for Notes...

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Use the LotusScript Debugger(it is your friend!)

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Agenda● Coding Best Practices

● Application Architecture

● Languages and Features

● Learning

● User Interface

● Everything Else

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Plan for Replication, Clustering, and Save Conflicts

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Server names?Local replicas?

Sequential numbering? (Just say no!)

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Understand Business Requirements

Things to Consider

● Purpose of project● Who are the key players of the project?● Who are the end users?● Length of time given to complete project

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Agenda● Coding Best Practices

● Application Architecture

● Languages and Features

● Learning

● User Interface

● Everything Else

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n:=0; @While (n > 1; Im:=gonna give you up)

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VS.

VS.No Thanks!

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' For each document in a Notes database, use a Notes macro to ' compute the average for a list of numeric entries in the ' NumberList field. Evaluate returns a Variant, and Notes ' macros return an array. In this case, the array contains only ' 1 element (element 0). For more info, see the Notes ' documentation.

Sub Click(Source As Button) ' The macro text must be known at compile time. Const NotesMacro$ = "@Sum(NumberList) / @Elements(NumberList)" Dim result As Variant, j As Integer Dim db As New NotesDatabase("", "MYSALES.NSF") Dim dc As NotesDocumentCollection Dim doc As NotesDocument Set dc = db.AllDocuments For j% = 1 To dc.Count Set doc = dc.GetNthDocument(j%) result = Evaluate(NotesMacro$, doc) MessageBox("Average is " & result(0)) Next End Sub

● You can use @Formula in Lotusscript with Evaluate

Remember this line...

● And you can use @Formula in Xpages with SSJS!

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LotusScript Is Not Scary

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DXL Is Not Scary

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DXL lets you view data and design elements in XML format. You can export, transform, and import that XML into and out of your Notes database... Imagine changing all the occurrences of a font name or some other design element by doing a Find/Replace!

But be careful! DXL does not have 100% fidelity, so you could lose important data from your datab...

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Layers Are Not Scary

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Agenda● Coding Best Practices

● Application Architecture

● Languages and Features

● Learning

● User Interface

● Everything Else

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Help! I Need Somebody!HELP!

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Help! I Need Somebody!

It doesn't matter how many years you've been developing... F1 Help from Domino Designer is your best-est friend...

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Help Is Just a Click Away!

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Resources:PlanetLotus - http://www.planetlotus.org

OpenNTF – http://www.openntf.org

Twitter - http://www.twitter.com

DeveloperWorks - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks

Domino Designer Wiki - http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/ddwiki.nsf

Martin Scott Domino Supersearch -

http://www.martinscott.com/dominosupersearch2.nsf/search?openform

Lotus Discussion Forums -

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/community/#publicforums

Domino KnowledgeBase - http://www-01.ibm.com/support/search.wss?

rs=463&tc=SSKTMJ&q=&loc=en-us

JUST ASK!

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Agenda● Coding Best Practices

● Application Architecture

● Languages and Features

● Learning

● User Interface

● Everything Else

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It's Important

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Important: Developers (plumbers) generally aren't very good designers (painters)

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So Easy, Even a N00b Can Do It!

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Low Fidelity Prototyping

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Agenda● Coding Best Practices

● Application Architecture

● Languages and Features

● Learning

● User Interface

● Everything Else

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Basic Understanding Of Admin Concepts

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Document Everything

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Document the business requirements

Document changes to the business requirements

Document your proposed solution to the business

requirements

Document acceptance/rejection from both you and

the client of proposed solution

Document time projections

Document changes to requirements made after time

projections

Document anything and everything you can think of

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Change Control Process

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Security Through Obscurity...is not security

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You may be familiar with the ACL, but keep in mind that many design elements have security too.

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Reader Fields

A Double-Edged Sword

Readers fields can...

Restrict users access

Span more than one field

Negatively affect performance

Watch name formatsDon't let users modify

Always have a back door

Gotchas...

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Understand Basic Performance Tuning

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●SO many things you can look for...● ● GetNthDocument vs GetNextDocument● ● NoCache on @DbLookups● ● AutoUpdate on views● ● Repeated @DbLookups● ● Refreshing form on each field● ● View indexing● ● @Today in views (@Now also)● ● @IsResponseDoc vs. @AllDescendents

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Talk to Papa

Question and Answer Time!

Don't forget to turn in your session evaluations! This was session JMP102 – Top Things All New Notes and Domino Developers Need To Know

Contact Information:

Kathy Brown - kathysrunningnotes@gmail.comBlog: Running Notes - http://www.runningnotes.netTwitter: kjbrown13

Thomas “Duffbert” Duff - duffbert@gmail.comBlog: Duffbert's Random Musings - http://www.duffbert.comTwitter: duffbert

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