Re: Java technologies

"Craig S. Ledbetter" wrote:
>
> Luis,
> We needed a simple user-interface to make some database maintenance tasks
> easier (we deliver a data warehouse application to customers who may not
> have adequate in-house Oracle skills). We chose to create a management
> console application in Java and to use the Oracle JDBC thin driver to
> connect to the database, so that our console could be run from any machine
> without even the Oracle Net8 client-side software installed. We wanted to
> keep it *really* simple.
>
> We wanted a way to make data warehouse validation and refresh operations
> easy for non-expert DBA's to initiate and monitor. Our console delivers any
> SQL statement, function or procedure call we want it to, and the user does
> not even have to see the code. We hide the SQL in XML configuration files.
> If we add a new XML file, we can add new functionality to the console
> application without further Java coding. We also wanted a way to kick off
> the SQL*Loader to load data files, but did not want the complexity of an
> additional OEM database, or a separate application server, or TCL scripting,
> or C++ code, etc. So we used a Java Stored Procedure which is easily called
> by our pure Java console front end. It creates a new OS process for the
> SQL*Loader, and passes the necessary parameters, then confirms that the file
> was loaded without error by matching the row count in the file with the
> number of rows reported by SQL*Loader, and the number of rows in the target
> table. So the Oracle-challenged customer can click on a button, select a
> file from the file-chooser dialog, and the file is loaded with SQL*Loader.
> Similarly, our users can kick off a backup shell script with the console for
> database backups with the click of a single button.
>
> This fulfilled a real customer need, was not web-related, and was actually
> easier than it sounds. The entire application (gui front end and stored
> procedures) are Java and SQL only. The stored procedures sit in a *.jar file
> and are easily imported to the database. The front end is installed in the
> simplest manner to the client PC (literally copy these files to a directory,
> create a shortcut, and launch the console).
>
> I am not an expert Java programmer by any means. Prior to this application I
> had only created a few applets. I can't even spell Oracle Forms, and have
> never touched Oracle Reports. From reading the Q&A from the newsgroups, I
> would guess that this was very much simpler because we used Java, XML, JDBC,
> and Oracle Java Stored Procedures. I guess my advice is to start reading.
> Java and its related technologies are not only here to stay, but they are
> starting to live up to their hype. Write once, run anywhere may still elude
> us, but write and deploy quickly is actually here today.
>
> IMHO
> Craig
>
Nice piece of work.

-- 

Gerard H. Pille