IdeaJam(tm) feed for Mark Demicoli

Domino Server / Web application server: CALDAV support for open calendar interoperability

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:25:04 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Tags: WebDAV CALDAV iCAL VCALENDAR
Idea:

The rise in popularity of online calendaring applications such as Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar has spurred these megalyths to support the emerging CALDAV standard (RFC 4791) for calendar event interoperability between disparate systems. On the client side, Mozilla's Firebird is already supporting CALDAV. This means that fully-compliant CALDAV servers such as Google Calendar can intelligently sync calendar information automatically with your preferred calendaring client software.

Domino already supports WEBDAV, to which CALDAV is the calendaring extension.

It would make perfect logical sense for Domino to support CALDAV fully, out of the box.

re: CALDAV support for open calendar interoperability

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:08:05 +0000

Author: Matt V
Comment: Completely agree!!!

Domino Server / Data Storage and Management: Referenced Design Inheretence

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:39:21 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Tags: Design Inheritence
Idea:

Design elements within Databases that inherit design, and design elements that inherit from other databases, should not physically exist in the inherited database, and instead be referenced by some kind of internal Domino pointer. This is made more practical today by using DB2 as a backend, where 'schemas' can be referenced (maybe??).

This would be a huge disk-space saving for mail databases for example, and reliable centralisation of shared code is possible.

re: Referenced Design Inheretence

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:03:49 +0000

Author: Scott Leis
Comment: No need; it's already done...
Where an entire database inherits from a single template, we've been able to do this since Notes 6.0 with single-copy templates.
I've never personally used this feature, and I don't know whether it works for individual design elements inheriting from separate templates.

re: Referenced Design Inheretence

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:39:17 +0000

Author: Starrow Pan
Comment: Yet it's needed to modify the inherited design elements sometimes.

Domino Server / Web application server: Web server should provide more informative formula errors

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:16:09 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Tags: errors formula
Idea:

When a web form contains a field with an errant formula, Domino HTTP spits out the error text with no reference to the field that threw the error. Simply mentioning the field name would be very useful and save a lot of process-of-elimination time to find the rogue formula.

re: Web server should provide more informative formula errors

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:27:19 +0000

Author: Ninke Westra
Comment: Unfortunately this is a general 'feature' of Lotus Notes/Domino - not quite helpfull error messages.
The client will do the same thing .

Domino Designer / : Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:49:28 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Tags: Formula @Formula
Idea:

Might be a stupid idea because I have no idea how well optimised this critical function is. But throwing a genius at it might yield a fantastic performance improvement. Surely IBM has some nutters in there with 2 key keyboards (0 & 1) :)

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:54:28 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Comment: My understanding is that Notes is written in C which is subject to generic compiler logic. You have a class of programmers that specialise in lower level programming languages such as assembler or machine code. These guys write incredibly optimised instructions for embedded systems that are performance critical. So the same functionality, logically optmised (ie perfectly efficient logic), that compiles to 1000 instructions when written in C and then compiled into machine code, could be written in say 250 instructions if written in machine code. Get the point?

Domino Designer / : "n documents selected" in status bar should reflect documents selected (!) not number of rows selected (Notes View)

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:31:06 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Tags: selected documents
Idea:

In a standard Notes View, the status bar indicates the number of rows selected, but states that this is the number of documents selected - which is patently wrong.

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:09:33 +0000

Author: Karl-Henry Martinsson
Comment: @3: Damien Katz rewrote the whole @Formula engine in Notes 6: { Link }
I am also sure it is pretty well optimized by now.

@Mark: I never seen any performance issues using @DbLookup, if the application design have been sound. And would it be worth spending the time (both in development and in testing) to address something that is really an application design issue? Throwing resources (more memory, faster CPU, faster drives) at a problem (e.g. a slow database) is not really a good solution, it is better to fix the underlying problem (design) instead.

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:52:25 +0000

Author: Urs Meli
Comment: I think, if a user would notice a performance gain in a lookup from 10ms to 5ms, than there is something wrong with your application. Maybee tooo many lookups?

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 08:26:57 +0000

Author: Lauri Laanti
Comment: I think the @Formula engine was rewritten couple years ago. I would assume that this particular function is pretty well optimized for speed.

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:38:36 +0000

Author: Matt White
Comment: Are you finding @DbLookups not performing well then? Often if you do have problems it's down to view design. Generally I am happy with the @DbLookup, although I would like the limits to be extended, but there's already an idea for that: { Link }

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:00:48 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Comment: @1: You missed the point. If a lookup in a badly designed view takes 10ms and 5ms in a beautifully designed view, both views would experience a 100% improvement if the @DBLookup function was improved by that factor.

Domino Server / Other: Provide controls to restrict which fields FT Index includes

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:28:09 +0000

Author: Mark Demicoli
Tags: full-text fulltext
Idea:

The current all-or-none approach to full-text indexing causes unnecessary index size and performance considerations. I propose that a mechanism be implemented either/and by:

1. Dialog selection of fields to index

2. Special form field that specifies fields to index (eg: $FTIndexFields)

re: Provide controls to restrict which fields FT Index includes

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:39:40 +0000

Author: Bill Malchisky
Comment: I appreciate the concept and what you are seeking as an admin, but to an end-user, that will go a long way to increasing animosity towards Notes. If a sought after word is deemed unsearchable, and they can see it on a document/form they will either (a) call the Help Desk, or (b) mumble that *%&$^ Notes product <expletive>. Which I think we would all like to avoid. :) For this reason, I will demote...

As a compromise, let's see if we can have FT compression, beyond where it is now. That would be a good thing.

re: Provide controls to restrict which fields FT Index includes

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:10:55 +0000

Author: Ninke Westra
Comment: If anything I'd like to see the ability to manipulate FT settings using lotusscript and not just on a database LOCAL to the script.

re: Rewrite @DBLookup in assembler

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:12:03 +0000

Author: Ninke Westra
Comment: I'd rather see those retarded limits on return set size removed (or increased significantly.

re: Web server should provide more informative formula errors

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:14:34 +0000

Author: Lauri Laanti
Comment: This should be controlled by notes.ini variable (and enabled on development/test servers only).