Re: WebDB vs. ColdFusion

Here's my take on it. Note that I haven't done an enormous amount of work with either, but here are my observations.

Webdb - Oracle

1. Webdb is essentially PL/SQL packages and procedures with a wizard based interface.
2. Templates can provide uniformity in webdb.
3. Install went quickly and painlessly.
4. I had a site setup and running in 2 days with interactive forms, using the wizards, some PL/SQL (not my strong suit) and Web Alchemy (freebie from Oracle, HTML to PL/SQL converter).
5. Everything is stored in the database
6. Performance depends on your server.

Cold Fusion - Oracle - IIS on NT

1. Cold Fusion is tag based. Special tags (CFML) are inserted in HTML to produce page.
2. Unless you buy Enterprise Edition, database connection is via ODBC (there may be a performance hit).
3. Pages are dynamically generated by the CF Server.
4. I had a site setup and running in 1.5 days
5. Cold Fusion pages are stored in the docs directories of your web server.

My own choice in this case was to use Cold Fusion, on because of the environment I'm in. My team isn't a development team, we're a higher level architecture group, the skillsets required to code in PL/SQL are not strong among the team, and there is a high comfort level with HTML, leading to an easier transition to tag-based database interface development.

Another point is that, although Oracle is a corporate standard for DBs, we didn't have a standard for web database development and, when consulting with our Technology Architecture group on their recommendations, they felt that it would be wiser to choose a database independent, platform flexible tool (NT, Solaris, Linux...)

So, the short answer is probably depends on your (or your team's) Oracle skills. The higher the skills, the easier it would be to make the case for WebDb (or OAS).

Just my thoughts, for what it's worth.

Joel

mufan_at_my-deja.com wrote:

> Hello
>
> This is a naive question so please bear with me.
>
> We would like to create a database preferably in Oracle and put that info
> up on our web server. The data will be accessible to anybody in the
> world.
>
> Right now the solution that has been suggested to us is Oracle 8i and
> WebDB. I was wondering what the difference (and relative strengths &
> weaknesses) is between this path and the following:
>
> Oracle 8i + ColdFusion + Apache WWW Server
>
> Thanks very much. If you would prefer to mail me directly, please use
> charles.alexander_at_vanderbilt.edu
>
> Charles Alexander
> (615)322-0855
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Received on Fri Feb 25 2000 - 12:59:33 CET