14.11.2009 Henning Heinz  
Hello World in XPages

Example code


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"><br /> 
<html lang="de"><br /> 
<head><br /> 
<title>Hello World</title><br /> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="/domjs/dojo-1.3.2/dojo/dojo.js" djConfig="locale: 'de-de'"></script><br /> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="/domjs/dojo-1.3.2/ibm/xsp/widget/layout/xspClientDojo.js"></script><br /> 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/domjava/xsp/theme/webstandard/xsp.css"><br /> 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/domjava/xsp/theme/webstandard/xspLTR.css"><br /> 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/domjava/xsp/theme/webstandard/xspSF.css"><br /> 
</head><br /> 
<body><br /> 
Hello World</body><br /> 
</html>

3 CSS Files, 2 Javascript libraries and a missing linebreak after world.
It gets worse if you use build in elements as XPages generate a very nice id tag soup. I doesn't have to be like that. The principle is simple.
Use what is needed, leave away what not.
So what's the deal with the auto-generated code?
It breaks
It breaks with browsers, it breaks with mobile devices. IBM' s answer is simple. Browser X or Device Y is not supported (yet). You sacrifice the power to fix it yourself and rely on IBM to do it.
Don't expect me to trust IBM for anything about web compatibility or standards.
If I would have trusted IBM before my websites until recently would be full of frames and nice java applets.
Thank you, I can live without that. And don't get me started to talk about Dojo.
Outside of the old Domino world (the one that has been put on hold with Notes 6) XPages provide little that cannot be achieved with other technologies. If I would like to have tag soups and auto generated code I would probably prefer Google Web Toolkit.
Now am I going to use XPages?
Yes I will because it is what you have to use if you want to use Domino on the web now. If I get a choice I will avoid it, if not I will use it.
And the things I don't like about XPages would be relatively easy to fix so there is at least hope that it get's better.

Alternatives like CouchDb are getting stronger with every release. There now even is a Windows installer. If the real power of Domino is the Notes Storage Facility (an opinion that I do not share) then I would be worried.
But at the end I could be wrong. IBM again is winning every day. They just "won" the Cities of Los Angeles and Orlando , Philips, Glaxo Smith Kline, Exxon Mobile, Allianz, J.P. Morgan Chase and many many more. They idea to count Exchange and/or Google migrations (from Domino) as a win is a great one.

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