computer science

HCL Notes

HCL Notes is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand HCL Notes rather than just read about it. In short: HCL Notes (formerly Lotus Notes then IBM Notes) is a proprietary collaborative software platform for Unix (AIX), IBM i, Windows, Linux, and macOS, sold by HCLTech. The client application is called Notes while the server component is branded HCL Domino.

Key takeaways

HCL Notes belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect HCL Notes to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of HCL Notes from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

HCL Notes (formerly Lotus Notes then IBM Notes) is a proprietary collaborative software platform for Unix (AIX), IBM i, Windows, Linux, and macOS, sold by HCLTech. The client application is called Notes while the server component is branded HCL Domino. HCL Notes provides business collaboration functions, such as email, calendars, to-do lists, contact management, discussion forums, file sharing, websites, instant messaging, blogs, document libraries, user directories, and custom applications. It can also be used with other HCL Domino applications and databases. IBM Notes 9 Social Edition removed integration with the office software package IBM Lotus Symphony, which had been integrated with the Lotus Notes client in versions 8.x. Lotus Development Corporation originally developed "Lotus Notes" in 1989. IBM bought Lotus in 1995 and it became known as the Lotus Development division of IBM. On December 6, 2018, IBM announced that it was selling a number of software products to HCLSoftware for $1.8bn, including Notes and Domino. This acquisition was completed in July 2019.

History Lotus Notes's chief inspiration was PLATO Notes, created by David R. Woolley at the University of Illinois in 1973. In today's terminology, PLATO Notes supported user-created discussion groups, and it was part of the foundation for an online community which thrived for more than 20 years on the PLATO system. Ray Ozzie worked with PLATO while attending the University of Illinois in the 1970s. When PC network technology began to emerge, Ozzie made a deal with Lotus Development founder Mitch Kapor that resulted in the formation of Iris Associates in 1984 to develop products that would combine the capabilities of PCs with the collaborative tools pioneered in PLATO. The agreement put control of product development under Ozzie and Iris, and sales and marketing under Lotus. Lotus beta tested Notes for so long that it was considered vaporware before its December 1989 release. The company was unsure at first of how or whether to market the product, as Lotus traditionally sold products through retail while Notes's corporate customers would buy from the company and require support. An example was Price Waterhouse, which bought 10,000 copies—the largest single sale of PC software—before the official release. In 1994, after the release and marketplace success of Notes R3, Lotus purchased Iris. In 1995 IBM purchased Lotus for $3.2 billion, primarily to acquire Notes. By then large companies bought the software in volume for tens of thousands of employees. In 2008, IBM released XPages technology, based on Jakarta Faces (formerly JavaServer Faces). This allows Domino applications to be better surfaced to browser clients, though the UX and business logic must be completely rewritten. Previously, Domino applications could be accessed through browsers, but required extensive web specific modifications to get full functionality in browsers. XPages also gave the application new capabilities that are not possible with the classic Notes client. The IBM Domino 9 Social Edition included the Notes Browser Plugin, which would surface Notes applications via minified version of the rich desktop client contained in a browser tab.

Branding Prior to release 4.5, the Lotus Notes branding encompassed both the client and server applications. In 1996, Lotus released an HTTP server add-on for the Notes 4 server called "Domino". This add-on allowed Notes documents to be rendered as web pages in real time. Later that year, the Domino web server was integrated into release 4.5 of the core Notes server and the entire server program was re-branded, taking on the name "Domino". Only the client program officially retained the "Lotus Notes" name. In November 2012, IBM announced it would be dropping the Lotus brand and moving forward with the IBM brand only to identify products, including Notes and Domino. On October 9, 2018, IBM announced the availability of the latest version of the client and server software. In 2019, Domino and Notes became enterprise software products managed under HCLSoftware.

Design HCL Domino is a client-server cross-platform software application runtime environment. Domino provides email, calendars, instant messaging (with further HCLSoftware voice- and video-conferencing and web-collaboration), discussions/forums, blogs, and an inbuilt personnel/user directory. In addition to these standard applications, an organization may use the Domino Designer development environment and other tools to develop further integrated applications such as request approval / workflow and document management. The Domino product consists of several components:

HCL Notes client application (since version 8, this is based on Eclipse) HCL Notes client, either: a rich client a web client, HCL iNotes a mobile email client, HCL Notes Traveler HCL Verse client, either: a web email client, Verse on Premises (VOP) a mobile email client, Verse Mobile (for iOS and Android) HCL Domino server HCL Domino Administration Client HCL Domino Designer (Eclipse-based integrated development environment) for creating client-server applications that run within the Notes framework Domino competes with products from other companies such as Microsoft, Google, Zimbra and others. Because of the application development abilities, HCL Domino is often compared to products like Microsoft SharePoint. The database in Domino can be replicated between servers and between server and client, thereby allowing clients offline capabilities. Domino, a business application as well as a messaging server, is compatible with both Notes and web-browsers. Notes (and since IBM Domino 9, the HCAA) may be used to access any Domino application, such as discussion forums, document libraries, and numerous other applications. Notes resembles a web-browser in that it may run any compatible application that the user has permission for. Domino provides applications that can be used to:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with HCL Notes

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what HCL Notes claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to HCL Notes before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about HCL Notes ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of HCL Notes

In research: HCL Notes appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses HCL Notes in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: HCL Notes is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1989 software, 2019 mergers and acquisitions, Classic Mac OS email clients, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for HCL Notes outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study HCL Notes in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what HCL Notes means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain HCL Notes out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is HCL Notes in simple terms?

Why does HCL Notes matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study HCL Notes?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on HCL Notes.