Re: Just done my first app in Forms!
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 17:27:33 GMT
Message-ID: <9Mip9.2844$Kp1.166630615_at_newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>
Nick wrote:
> Just done (yeah, almost, unless some bugs discovered) my first app in Oracle
> Forms 6i
> It's a pretty simple system and yet I needed to code around 2,000 lines
>
> Having used Access for some time, my impression is that Access wins hands
> down in developing front-ends.
>
> Forms 6i has a lot of small annoyance, and not as intuitive as Access.
>
> Can someone give me a reason or two I should still stick with Forms then?
>
> Nick
>
>
That's good news! Congratulations!
Okay, in the real world we seldom get to pick our favorite client software. Usually, we are told to use Forms. No, it's not as intuitive as Access ... just try to do a global replace (which is why in the old days we used vi to edit the .inp files ... but that was too "dangerous" so Oracle removed .inp files). Sometimes it requires a certain amount of frustration to line up objects on the canvas. I worked with an older version so it might be fixed now ... but customers were always asking why they can't do the Alt-letter to move around on the screen (like you can jump to underlined letters in Windows). Forms likes the mouse, not the keyboard. And we had to make Forms work on character-mode terminals (eg, telnet clients with terminal emulators that worked like the ancient vt220 terminals) ... which was it's own kind of nightmare (but I suspect it would be even worse for Access).
But you gotta love the way Forms automatically handles block coordination. And I don't have to worry about setting up the complex intricasies of odbc connections on everyone's computer ... just have to load the Forms runtime (which can be done automatically over the network).
I guess, in the end, you pick your poison. Neither option is the ideal solution, so you just go with the one that has the fewest number of headaches. When it comes to access to an Oracle database, Forms wins on that point. But like I said, usually you have no choice ... the powers at the top dictate you *will* use Forms ... so you do. Received on Thu Oct 10 2002 - 19:27:33 CEST