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Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

I worked at Lotus, and then in banks doing Lotus Notes apps. It really was super simple to create a simple line of business app with minimal coding, proper security, workflow etc.

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Writing Notes/Dominos apps was my first 'programming' job (if you ignore cutting and pasting random javascript into HTML files...) back in 97. We created a whole suite of in house apps that basically ran the business, including making most of them available as web apps for people who didn't have the Notes Client. It was so fast and simple do to that even a 'dumb' kid with only a high school education and who barely knew how to program could be instantly productive, I honestly can't think of anything that can really match it even today.

I've always been slightly confused why they insisted on selling it as a mediocre email client rather than a quite fantastic RAD tool.

"I honestly can't think of anything that can really match it even today"

This is exactly my thought.

Perhaps Attio or Google AppSheet?

I can offer only second-hand knowledge, but I was told at the time that Lotus was intending to keep the RAD aspects and drop email from it completely, leaving cc:Mail as a standalone product. But IBM came along and wanted to modernize their email system, so Lotus took a deal to take the direction IBM wanted because it also brought massive marketing and consulting power and could drive adoption better than Lotus could.

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