1 - I think the best is for IBM to get into alliances with book publishers and get more material published around Lotus/Domino technologies. There is a shortage of books around Domino and most of the materials available (Redbooks, articles e.t.c) is just a re-hash of Notes/Domino Help with a couple of graphics.
Other technologies (Oracle, Sharepoint e.t.c) are far better documented even if they are relatively new compared to Notes/Domino and I do not see why the same can not be achieved for Notes/Domino.

2 - The best, most accessible, *free* training I've ever seen is the Sun website tutorial courses for beginning Java here:

{ Link }

Its sequential, easy. I don't have a big training budget so of course I love it being free.

Maybe a similar style course exists for LotusScript and Domino in general, but I've not seen it, or not free anyway.

I like this style, because its in small digestible pieces, and its near-Wiki nature means its easy to go and lookup other points mentioned.

I don't see this type of training costing IBM a great deal either.

3 - @Rocky,
I like this person's question on "vibrancy" too. Is there a future for the Domino Developer? For that matter, will there be a need for a RAD developer at all in the future. I'm seeing vendors promoting their software that requires "no developer" or "IT involvement". To be a developer in the future, will I have to move "offshore", work for a big software company and code JAVA all day long? Or, should I just learn guitar, get singing lessons and go on the road. Heck, that's what I really want to do anyway.

4 - I think it has been established that there is a very small or niche market for saleable Notes/Domino educational resources. That this is a bit of a chicken & egg conundrum is irrelevant, IBM needs to provide free educational resources that are designed for new entrants to the platform. It's not like IBM wasn't giving away a ton of educational resources in their Redbooks, but the problem is that the structure of the Redbooks, or even the invaluable dearth of blogs is that each topic is reviewed in isolation and is scattered all over the net.

There is not a good place to go to get an overview of the Domino DOM, regardless of the scripting/delivery approach you prefer, be it web vs client, Java(Script) vs @Formula/LotusScript. And more to the point, as things stand, one needs to know a bit of everything in order to make the applications behave in the intended way.

I think the best approach would be to set up a Domino Wiki application where educational material is published, roles can be set up for content creators and the registered/recruited gurus who would like to participate can add to the curriculum. Because of the nature of the nsf, folks could view the site via web, or if registered as readers, could make a local replica of the database for offline use, etc.

I've heard many calls (especially every time this topic comes up on Ed Brill's blog) for IBM to subsidize the cost of book publishing... I don't think it would be too far-fetched to have IBM provide compensation for published content so long as it goes through a quality-of-content review process. If there's not a lot of money in it anyway, why not make available to everyone and grow the developer base.

I think this approach will also leverage the collective knowledge that the more advanced gurus have about which classes, methods etc. work or don't work in certain contexts, or are buggy, or differently than the help nsfs seem to imply.

It would also provide a living document that can be tagged in all kinds of different ways (i.e. which functions are new to version 8 and/or won't work in previous versions) and that has all the knowledge in one place so there's no confusion about where to go to learn about Notes/Domino.

Microsoft is practically giving away certifications to interested developers, why not IBM do the same and in a way that is in line with it's vision of using web 2.0 in the business world.

My $.02

5 - @1 - I would agree with Mika that if you are interested in *passing the tests* to get certified, sitting down for a spell in the Lotusphere Cert Lab will do the trick. However, I think the writer was more focused on actually *learning* something, which is not to say you can't do that in the labs as well.

I too am curious about what others' experience has been with various training materials that might not require Lotusphere attendance. Anyone?

6 - For good reliable notes/domino training I always go to Kent Kurchak 1st:
{ Link }
It is not free but is ain't expensive either.

7 - The training labs at LotuSphere are the best and most efficient and easiest way of learning about Notes/Domino I have seen or could imagine.

You can use them first in crash test mode, just answering what you think is right, then you can can check your errors and see what went wrong.

Repeat it a few times and you will pass any Principal level Designer/Admin test with a score of 98%+ :)

Would be really cool to get those tests on-line also, since not everyone is going to LotuSphere every year, but they still keep upgrading their Notes/Domino.

8 - One free option that comes to mind is to do a search in IBM's support & downloads site { Link } and use the following search terms "Lotus Education On Demand". Another option that is not free but I've recommended to folks is ElementK { Link } -Gus

9 - @4 - Thanks for the link, I knew there was some company who did the tests which IBM Lotus uses also in LotuSphere, but I wasn't sure which one it was. I think we are going to order a few of those CertFX tests since they are good training tools, especially for the co-workers who don't attend LotuSphere.

10 - @1 - those same practice tests offered in the labs are sold by CertFX online.

11 - @2 - I'd say that they are actually in first place the best way of learning, you just happen to pass the tests because you learned something. The questions are each time different in both the learning labs and actual tests, so there's no way you can "remember" everything without actually knowing what you learned. However the total amount of material asked in the actual passing tests is relatively small, and principal degree is not really something which makes a person able to solve everything, you still need years of experience (not only knowledge , but also the ability to utililize and combine methods of other origins) and self-initiative to reach that.