Re: Who Uses Designer? What do you think?

sdenney wrote in message
>Oracle's sales literature can be rather optomistc. I was just curious
 which
>piecess of designer you might use on an ongoing basis in real life. My
>questions are:
>
>Does anybody maintain schemas definitions and modules in designer? What
 are
>your thoughts on the good pieces? What do you refuse to maintain in
>designer because it doesn't work.
>
>Any input that anyone has would be appreciated. Any Oracle consultants?
>

We have used Designer since the beginning and I highly recommend it. It does have a sharp learning curve. Easier to learn if you have someone working with you initially to show you how to use all the features.

The Process and Function modelling tools are very nice in that you can enter a lot of descriptive information. You can also use the Process Model tool to
animate flows, which is a nice feature for presentations to management. Can even incorporate sounds, pictures and videos. On the down side, the Process Modeler has always had some annoying layout quirks.

The ER Diagrammer works very well.

Never used the Data Flow diagrams much.

The database and module design wizards can be used, but you have to watch for some problems.

We used the tool to generate forms, reports, menus and pl/sql modules with few problems. It has gotten much better in recent years as you can now almost totally generate your application. Only a few things (usually cosmetic)
have to be done in Developer.

It is a great way to document your business processes and build on that information
to create applications and schema objects, but it takes practice and you have to
be committed to maintaining the application within Designer to get its full benefits.
Not always easy to do when you are under pressure to get code out fast.

HTH Tracy Received on Fri Mar 30 2001 - 06:55:38 CEST