I am a Lotus Notes and Domino Developer. I've been working with Notes since R3 and have 18 years experience writing and deploying applications for a variety of clients and employers.

Why IBM Lotus Notes? Few outside the financial industry or Fortune 500 companies have even heard much of Notes and Domino. A number of my geek friends have poked fun at my deliberate choice to write software in bloated scripting languages for a bloated and expensive environment.

Notes is a heirarchical document database with excellent server to server replication and document routing. It is the perfect medium for capturing and encoding bureacratic and business processes. It offered a web-like forms based interface before the web was even invented, including:

• OLE and inline attachments,
• Dual-key cryptography with field-level encryption, document signing, and access control,
• Code-signing (which prevents malware),
• Excellent roaming and offline support, and reliable database replication,
• An excellent IDE for rapid application development,
• Interoperability with most every database system and document format out there.

Since the web was invented Notes has gained...