Let’s talk about Lotus Notes, baby
There’s a sedentary behemoth piece of crappy software on the enterprise level that has managed to stay alive despite the fact that if it were human, it would have died from several kinds of cancerous afflictions. No it’s not Windows. It’s Lotus Notes.
By design a document-level, non-relational database, functionality is squeezed into this mold with little success. It’s primary use in most companies is e-mail (Because those pesky standard POP-things are just too bourgeois) and custom application development.
Its advocates praise its easy and quick development process. Sure, at a glance one could say that a drag-n-drop approach to database design would lend itself to great applications. However you soon discover that you are not so much using Lotus Notes, as programming around it, trying to accomplish the most basic of tasks.
But, that is a concern for the developer and amazingly there are people who have a huge hard-on for Lotus development. And if you dare say anything about the Holy Notes, they will descent upon you like grasshoppers on a thing grasshoppers decent upon.
No, its most unholiest of sins is its user interface. IBM has claimed that it doesn’t use the standard Windows widgets because it needs to set itself apart from all other applications. Sure, who needs consistency in their interface? That’s for crazy people!
