Re: Oracle Forms VS Java

Please - decide in which forum you want to discuss this. I am certain our colleagues are getting moderately unhappy about reading the same posts in both forums. I suggest cdo.tools.

Daniel Frechette wrote:

> Thank you very much, Hans and Micheal, for your answers.
>
> Unfortunately, I don't foresee my client upgrading to a higher version
> of Forms in the near future.

That is sad. There are many, many advantages to Forms 6i and 9i, not the least being that Forms 4.5 is no longer supported.

>
> Hans, what do you mean by "... Oracle decided to drop client-server and
> drop forcing compatibility with client-server style interaction"? A
> Web-based architecture is and will always be client-server.

Client-Server, in this context, means that the client that contains the application - in your case the browser & the applet in the browser freamework - communicates directly to the database, probably via JDBC or RMI or via SQL*Net/Net8 or Oracle Networking.

In the new world there is a distinct move toward n-tier computing and Oracle is at the head of the line marching on boldly. This means that the client runs either a very skinny applet with Swing as primary responsibility (eg: controlling display) or pure HTML. Thois client communicates to a middle tier that contains the bulk of the application logic, but little/no display logic. In the pure HTML arena, this tends towards a JSP middle tier, whereas the applet variant tends to use a more complete range of the available J2EE services and the full EJB suite.

> My client has many applications written in Forms 4.5 and very few
> written in Java/J2EE. I was originally hired to develop a Java/J2EE
> solution but some Forms developers started to challenge that decision
> and I'm now forced to justify it. Can you give me more input on Forms
> 4.5.

Sorry - my Forms 4.5 is too rusty, the internals to the architecture have changed a lot (in part based on lessons learned from 4.5), and I do not like the concept of putting an unsupported product into production.. (The concept of the architecture is still the same, the internals and the technology have evolved a lot.) If the customer has access to the source, there is a tremendous benefit - including cost benefit - to upgrading. The Forms developers should be supporting this (and I am suprirsed that your comments about 'no upgrade soon' seems to conflict with this.)

Migration from 4.5 to 6i is almost a no-brainer and, if they have paid support, is at minimal expense to them (aside from time to test). From there, migration to 9i is also a a minimal jump. Even multi-language support should not be an issue.

In my mind, your best bet is to get them to migrate to 9i and then show how you can extend their functionality in both middle tier and front end with your rich Java & J2EE environment. That should get the Forms guys on your side and support a major win-win opportunity. (I happen to believe in the benefits of Forms. I'm also very comfortable with Java & J2EE.)

You want to call the Oracle office in Montreal and ask for the manager from the presales group. You want him & his people to provide you with a summary of the Oracle Technology Days session about Forms9i that has been given in various cities in North America - this gives a fair bit of detail of the benefits arising from the combined Oracle Forms9i and Java/J2EE skill set. It will be worth your time! (If you want, I'll give him a heads-up as well with a bit of background.) Received on Fri May 30 2003 - 23:36:57 CDT