Re: SQL*Forms 3.0 to 4.5 Migrations

John Sheets wrote:
>
> Looking for info/experiences in converting a small SQL*Forms 3.0 based
>
> system to SQL*Forms 4.5. Any feedback on migration tools or services
>
> would also be appreciated. We know of Kumaran, Sierra Atlantic and a few
>
> others.

We've just spent the best part of 6 months converting all our Forms 3/Reports 1.1 apps to Forms 4.5/Reports 2.5 to run in character mode on Solaris.

We used Kumuran to perform the Forms conversion (approx 83Mb of Forms3 code was converted at considerable expense!!) because we wanted to position our apps to be able to be moved to a GUI environment sometime down the track (after char-mode implementation was bedded in).

My advice is based on what do you want do to with your small Forms 3 app - do you want to run in character mode only? If so, is it likely you will want to port to a GUI environment later?

If you only want to run char-mode, then in my opinion you don't need Kumuran just use the standard oracle conversion. Even if you want to run GUI at a later stage it may be more successful to redevelop your interface to take advantage of GUI features and make it more GUI friendly since you say it is only a small app.

My advice regardless of what you do is TEST, TEST, TEST !!! This is not a trivial conversion and I guarantee you will find lots of problems.

If running char-mode like us, make allowance for a sh*t load more disk space (factor of 10x over Forms 3) and more memory (larger Forms 4.5 exe's take a lot longer to load and in my opinion seem to run slower than Forms 3 counterpart).

If you want to know specific sorts of problems encountered during conversion then drop us an email and I'll put you onto someone who has been at the coal face dealing with them.

Regards
Mal. Received on Thu Jun 12 1997 - 00:00:00 CEST