Using Java instead of Oracle Forms

[eeriehunk]

Hi All, I heard about using Java & JSP instead of Oracle Forms. Can anyone suggest me about using Java and kindly forward me to any links for beginners to start with. I tried to Google it but unfortunately couldn't find better links.
Regards, AJ

[chaarmann]

To convert Oracle Forms into JSP you need to know about:
- Java
- JSP
- JDBC
- HTML

What do you already know? On which topic you couldn't find a link?

[eeriehunk]

@chaarmann
Hi, Thanks for your reply, but I don't want to convert any existing forms to Java. If I have to start a new project, what is the advantage of using Java/JSP compared to Oracle Forms.
Regards, AJ

[chaarmann]

@eeriehunk
I highly advise to use JSP instead of Oracle Forms. This is what I know from 5 years before when I evaluated Oracle Forms. (But this knowledge might not be so accurate nowadays)

- Oracle Forms can only be run when you install a special program on the client machine. This is very costly and time-consuming and not everybody wants to install it (or is allowed to install it). JSP pages can be run in any browser which everybody already has installed.

- You can create all types of GUI elements and controls in JSP pages, but in Oracle Forms you are restricted to only some predefined one.

- You can extend JSP pages as much as you like with new functionality, but in Oracle Forms you are restricted.

- If you want to change the database (or add another database) in the future, you can do that easily in JSP (using JDBC, or better Hibernate as an abstraction layer), but that is not possible with Oracle Forms.

[JosAH]

@chaarmann
A few remarks: JSPs do not run on the client's browser; they run on the server site instead. Of course the resulting page may contain Javascript code that runs on the client's browser but the JSP that produced it is long gone then.

Also JSPs should stay far away from backend databases; they have to concentrate on producing the result page that is to be send to the client.

kind regards,

Jos

[chaarmann]

@JosAH
Maybe my answer was a little bit misleading. With "JSP pages can be run in any browser" I wanted to simplify the fact that the output prodced by them is (usually, but not necessarily) HTML which can be displayed in common browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer etc. You don't need to install anything (proprietary from oracle) on the client side to view them.
But Oracle Forms cannot be viewed with these browsers by the client. To view them, you need to install a special proprietary program from Oracle on each client which acts like a browser, and this browser can only show you Oracle Forms, nothing else.

@JosAH
More precise, you should use them in a Model-View-Controller (MVC) way: don't mix database calls (model) with HTML (view) inside one JSP page. There are other framework that enforce that more: Velocity or Freemarker. Define your database calls in Java classes and use JSPs only to fomat the result for HTML output.
That's exactly the big advantage of JSP pages: you can work with any backend, not only Oracle database. By using an abstraction layer such as Hibernate, you can make sure your application will provide highest flexibility and easy changes in the future. But with Oracle Forms you cannot separate in a MVC way: you always have the database calls (model) and Form-layout (view) mixed, which makes it difficult and time consuming to change them later on.
On the other side, if you are 100% sure that you will always use Oracle in the future and no other database beside it, then Oracle forms have the advantage that you can develop them quicker by drag & drop within an easy GUI, and you don't need to pay for a programmer.