Yesterday I attended a new edition of the xPages and Beer sessions. xPages and Beer is an initiative started by some very great xPages developers to share their knowledge for anyone who wants to attend.
The very first edition started with around ~10 people and yesterday a stunning crowd of 20! people where attending. It realy shows that gatherings like these are wanted by the community. During the session we saw three presentations done by different people
Peter Pennings – Ilionx : Mobile xPages.
During his presentation Peter talked about an application he created for the newest blackberry. The idea behind the application was that it retrieved it’s data from ‘a’ source and saved it locally on the phone to update it the next the time the user wanted or came online ( if I understood correctly ). Althrough the application itself was not made with the mobile xPage controls (which I actually hoped to get some more information about ) the data is being retrieved using an call to a xAgent. This realy shows the power of xPages.
Thimo Jansen – Defrog: xe:ObjectData ( link )
The second, and for me personally the most interesting session, was about the use of the xe:Object data. xe:ObjectData were introduced in the extension library quit some time ago. xe:ObjectData is a new type of datasource. Instead of using a document or a view you can now use a Pojo as the model of your xpage. I’ve used them in the past but didn’t quit understand the need for them because sooner or later the data is saved to a notesdocument anyway. Now with the presentation from Thimo I’m eager to use them again in future projects!
Mark Leusing: Debugging / Debug toolbar (link)
During the last presentation Mark talked about his debug toolbar (which every xpage developer should be using.. !) and about java / ssjs debugging in general. Now with the remote debugging capabilities in Notes 9 and the debugtoolbar at hand there really shouldn’t be a reason for a developer to use print! ( so called poor man’s debugger ) statement anymore.
Many thanks to every one for organising this event and see you next time!
update: Added links to a presentation about debug toolbar and xe:objectdata
xe:ObjectData sounds interesting, found the presentation here: http://www.slideshare.net/thimojansen/xpages-22933454