Re: MS Access v's Visual Basic v's Forms5

There are lots of reasons for using each tool.

Generally, Oracle Forms (and Reports ) are more difficult to learn quickly ( large amount
of up front learning). My personal experience has been Forms are not exactly Windows
compatible. It is based on Motif and has a slightly different methodology. The biggest
advantages are speed and robustness. MSAccess and VB both are connected using ODBC. My experience is 10 fold SLOWER than direct access via SQLNet and Oracle tools like Forms, Report, and C. Forms has facility to support transfer of large
record sets ie 10,000 or more records. Forms supports bringing limited number of

records at a time, so one does not have to wait for all the records to be transferred.
Forms supports transactions explicitly. It allows one to edit many (1000s) and then
undo this. It can be done in the other products, but at some cost.

I have built Reports that in MS Access took hours that then took minutes in Reports. Access
is quicker to develop that first report. However, Reports has more sophisticated reports, with
more complex outputs, incorporation of runtime alteration of the queries. I have built queries
that have different where clauses -- different variables, different values for fields, etc. This is
not possible in MSAccess. After about 3 months, I could write a Oracle Report as fast as
anyone could develop an MSAccess report -- and mine ran faster. I generally wrote
ad hoc reports in the ReportWriter tool.

VB has more versatility do to the large programming options. However, there is not
extensive support for things like field and row validation, PL/SQL, implicit support for
master detail forms, etc. VB is a generic programming language. One can alway eventually
recreate the functionality of Forms. However, think of the effort. Forms is probably
1000's of manhours or at least 100's of woman hours of programming. To duplicate this
one would have to do at least that much programming. Then you would have to build
the product. Forms (and Reports) you are working on the product.

The most significant factor against Forms is generally the cost of the development tools.
The Forms tool is about $3000 per chair per OS. Runtime versions of the applications are free.

Mike Krolewski

Ray Dowling wrote:

> We are currently evaluating development tools for corporate applications. We
> would like a microsoft look at the desktop with the Oracle Server database.
> I am confident that Oracle Forms5 will perform but it has been suggested
> that we look to the Microsoft Products. I am concerned with 2 tier
> architecture.
>
> We plan to use Des2K for repository. I believe it can generate Visual Basic.
> How successful is this??
>
> Has anyone used the products with Oracle Server???
> Are there any reference sites comparing the products (features, limitations
> etc)????.
>
> Ray Dowling
> E-mail Address(es):
> rdowling_at_portbris.com.au
Received on Wed Sep 30 1998 - 10:06:00 CEST