OraTransplant

Forms 10.1.2 supports Sun JPI 1.5

Grant Ronald just released the updated the statement for Client Support of Oracle Forms 10g release 2 (10.1.2). The most noticeable change with the 10g release 1 (9.0.4) version is the added support for Sun Plug-In v1.5 on Windows and the official support of Mozilla Firefox (albeit only with JInitiator and not the Sun Plug-In).

For us this is great news. The majority of our users are external to us and work in hospitals and other medical institutions throughout Europe. When migrating to the web we decided to go for the Sun Plug-In and not the Oracle JInitiator. External sysadmins are a lot more willing to install Sun Plug-In than they are to install the unknown Oracle JInitiator. In fact, most of the time some version of Sun Plug-In is already installed on a workstation.

We also decided to use dynamic versioning of the Sun Plug-In and not dynamic versioning. What this means is that we do not mandate an exact version of the Sun Plug-In, but rather state a minimum version of the Plug-In and also accept any newer version. You can find a couple of blog entries about how we set this up.

Unfortunately you cannot supply both a minimum and maximum version with dynamic versioning of a Java applet. You just get to specify a minimum version. In our case we specified 1.4.2_04 as this is the version that was installed at all our internal machines at the time. When someone tries to start our application and does not have an appropriate version of Sun JPI, we supply the download URL in the page. We still point this to 1.4.2 to encourage our users to install Java 1.4.2 and be using an Oracle certified client.

However, some of the external sysadmins just grab a Java version of the Sun site and that’s mostly 1.5. Also, even if a user installs 1.4.2 the applet will warn the user that a newer version is available and will ask the user to upgrade. In the end this makes a lot of our users use Sun JPI 1.5.

We had some issues with Sun JPI 1.5 and although Oracle was willing enough to log these as bugs as they had to be fixed eventually, there was no way for us to track the bug or keep a TAR open for this since it wasn’t a supported configuration. Now that Oracle has officially announced support for Sun JPI 1.5 in the Forms 10g release 2 product, we can go ahead and push for a solution.

Jonas Jacobi on JSF

By far the most interesting session I attended today was “Everything you need to know about JavaServer Faces and ADF Faces” by Jonas Jacobi. He gave a nice overview of the standard JavaServer Faces (JSF) and Oracle’s ADF Faces which mainly offer a lot of extra JSF compliant components.

I really encourage you to have a look at the JSF site on OTN. Have a special look at the link where Jonas introduces ADF Faces. You can find this link in the “Meet the experts” box at the right hand top corner. It’s a 49 minute webinar on JSF and shows a neat example of the rich internet applications (RIA) you will be able to build with (future releases of) ADF Faces. Jonas shows a file explorer that he also showed today in the session. It gives a good idea of what will be possible with ADF Faces.

Throughout Oracle OpenWorld I’ve seen several demos of Oracle Bank, a demo application showing some great features of ADF Faces and how rich a thin client can be. I couldn’t find a viewlet of this on OTN (yet), so I will at least show a picture of the screen. You can click on the pic for a larger view, or even download the original picture. There where a lot of impressive things in this demo: sliders, you can collapse en expand entire “frames” (you can see the upper search frame collapsed, the middle select frame expanded and the bottom complete frame collapsed), selecting another row in the table automatically refreshed the graph, a very slick look-and-feel and much, much more.

The other two session I went to were less interesting. One gave an overview of the new features in Application Server 10gR3 and most of it were things I already knew although I heard a couple of minor new things. The other session was a real disaster and not very useful. Today we also had the keynote by Larry Ellison and I mus say that I had expected a bit more from that. Not that it was bad and not that I know what I was expection but it was all a bit tame. Perhaps that’s what they have to do when there is so much at stake.

Just aside: I’m not really an Applications type of guy. I’m more from a custom development background. This means I do not express a lot of interest in all the JD Edwards/Peoplesoft/Oracle EBS things going on at OpenWorld. However, I did notice a truck running up and down the street before the Moscone center all day. Could it be that Microsoft is being nervous?

Visit the Hands-On Labs!

I made a mistake in my previous posting that might just give even more confusion. I used the name Demogrounds in stead of Hands-On Labs. What I wanted to say:

Just a quick note to the other visitors of Oracle OpenWorld: you really should visit the Hands-On Labs. They are quite well hidden on the ground floor of Moscone West (the third building where you registered). The Hands-On Labs are really worth while and you can get your hands on all sorts of Oracle technologies.

A unique opportunity that unfortunately is a bit hard to find.

CAB meeting and bloggers dinner

Tuesday was a packed day. After a full day of sessions at OpenWorld I had a meeting of the Customer Advisory Board for Development Tools and a dinner of the bloggers or orablogs.

I thought the CAB meeting was a great thing. It was my first time since I only recently joined the CAB but I understood from the meeting this was the first meeting ever or at least the first in a long time. We all agreed we should have these things more often at the various big Oracle events and we will setup other communications like regular webcasts and a CAB only listserv.

It was an informal gathering of about 15 customers giving detailed feedback to Oracle on their product strategy. Most of us were coming from a Designer and/or Forms background. Most of the customers present are also working with JDeveloper, but that doesn’t say they’re all dropping Forms. You see a lot of customers (like ourselves) doing both. I guess it’s great for Oracle product management to get this direct kind of feedback. For me, it’s a great way to get a bit more insight on where Oracle is going with its tools and hopefully can even influence their direction (a bit).

As soon as the meeting left, Sue Harper, Steve Muench and I rushed over from the CAB meeting to the bloggers dinner Mark Rittman had organized. and which Brian Duff already blogged about. What a great way to meet a couple of the bloggers. I forgot to make any pictures but I guess Mark did so I’ll try to get his. And since I’m very bad in remembering names I’ll ask him to put names with the picture so I can make a stunning impression next year when I meet them and still remember their names (after a quick glance at the picture )

Update 21-sep-2005: See Mark’s weblog for the pictures. As always I managed to get in a picture with some weird looking face while eating…

Day two (Tuesday) at Oracle OpenWorld

On Monday I had some great sessions about the future of Forms and new developments in Server Technology as you could have seen in other blog entries. Yesterday (Tuesday) I had three more sessions. The first one was on Oracle Business Rules, the second one on creating your own portlets for Portal and the last one on SOA patterns and methodologies.

The last one wasn’t really what I expected from it. I’m a type of guy that’s looking for in depth technical advice, a couple of examples or demo’s and perhaps a view of what’s coming in next versions. This session was more the kind of stuff they teach you at university and where it’s hard for me to see where it fits my practical needs. I guess that’s always the risk on these large conferences where you have to pick on out of 25 parallel sessions. There is a very short description in the conference guide and from that you have to guess what the session will be like.

The session about portlets was more interesting. For me it was basically the first time I had a real look at Oracle Portal and I must say I liked it. That’s also why I select some sessions, to get a quick glimpse of what other Oracle products have to offer me. They did an introduction to portlets and showed how to create a portlet for an existing Struts/JSP application. Basically you’re creating a new view layer (JSP pages) by copying the original JSP pages, removing all branding and other stuff you don’t want in the (small) portlet and replace the Struts tags with PDK-Struts (Portal Development Kit) tags that basically do the same but make sure that a click on a link or button doesn’t refresh the entire window and makes you jump our of the portal. In stead these special PDK-Struts tags make sure you stay within the portlet.

The session I started the day with was on Oracle Business Rules a new part of Oracle Fusion Middleware and already available as a preview release download. It all looked very promising but a bit immature. A lot of things were “coming in a next version” and to me that’s always a sign you might want to wait one or two more versions before jumping on. I guess the real test will be when Oracle Apps division picks it up in their products towards Project Fusion. However, it still looked promising enough to investigate further once I’m back. In a next version they will support decision tables and that’s exactly what we’ve been thinking about for our donor allocation schemes.

The only comment I have on OpenWorld is the number and length of keynote speeches and the fact there is nothing else you can do at the same time. No sessions going on and most of the times the exhibition and demo grounds are also closed. To me, most keynote speeches are just too much marketing stuff by the larger sponsors of the event. Well they probably paid big bucks to sponsor this event, so they do deserver some attention.

OpenWorld: Project Raptor – watch out TOAD

Oracle released an Early Access version of project Raptor. This made much of the following article obsolete as you can now see for yourself.

I just attended a session about new developments by the Server Technologies’ Database Division. One of the most interesting things (for me) was the short demo of project Raptor. This is the long awaited visual tool for database development. It could be a real competitor for the well known TOAD product from Quest. They did a short demo in which you could view and alter all the known database objects. The also showed some PL/SQL development features including code formatting and a powerful debugger. The session was also about other new developments in database 10gR2 and coming releases. This mean there was only a couple of minutes to demo project Raptor but it was really interesting. A lot of people approached the speaker afterwards to ask about Raptor.

It looked very familiar to me (knowing JDeveloper). It doesn’t require an Oracle client, just as JDeveloper. It’s just a matter of unzipping and start running. Looking at the screen it looks like it just makes a JDBC connection. It’s based on the JDeveloper framework but it is much more powerful then the existing database and PL/SQL editing features in JDeveloper. As I understood it will eventually replace the current database and PL/SQL editing in JDeveloper in some feature release. But before that, project Raptor will be offered as a standalone product on OTN. Due to all the new regulations Oracle people cannot give estimated delivery dates other then “this fiscal year”. For Oracle that means before May 31st 2006, but the speaker told me he expects it on OTN very soon.

I used my digital camera to make some photos of the demoed screens. The unfortunate thing is that I forgot to bring my USB cable to the Moscone center, so I can’t upload the pictures before this evening. Check back again to see the screenshots.

Some of the other things discussed in the session were Oracle Secure Backup, Patch distribution by Enterprise Manager Grid control 10gR2, TimesTen in-memory database, XQuery, Transparent data encryption, HTML-DB and two new security features: AuditVault and DataVault.

To me, TimesTen and AuditVault were the most interesting as they seemed to target actual business problems we are having right now. I’ll have to look into both technologies when I’m back at the office. I guess attending OpenWorld will take more then just the one week I’m here. I get the feeling I have a couple of weeks work when I get back in checking out all the new stuff I discover here.

PS. On a more personal note: congratulations to my wife for our second wedding anniversary. Couldn’t think of a better/more romantic way to celebrate it than to be on my own in San Francisco visiting a tech conference

Update 19-sep-2005 18:30: I’ve just returned to my hotel room to connect my digital camera to my laptop and upload the pictures. I didn’t want to use my flash when making the pictures during the session so I needed quite a long shutter time. Unfortunately that made the first picture kind of blurry. Nonetheless I will post all three pictures below. You can click on any of the pictures to get a bit larger view.

If you want to get the full size images, you can find them here, here and here.

The first screenshot is the blurry one but you can (hardly) see the tree control showing all database objects and the code editor for stored PL/SQL. The second shot shows the context menu including the Format SQL option for code formatting. The third and final shot shows the debugger in action. You can see all variables in the lower right corner. By the way: hovering over a variable in the code editor will show its value as a tooltip. You can also see the debug console at the lower end of the screen and the call stack in the lower left. I must say Raptor looked very promising for the five minutes we got to look at it. Let’s hope Oracle will show it at the demogrounds later this week and for the screenshots Brian has promised.

I’m off to the OTN underground event. Check back tomorrow for more updates on OpenWorld.

Update 21-sep-2005: Raptor was just briefly demoed during the keynote of Chuck Rozwat. Unfortunately I was watching the keynote in an overflow room where the screen is too small to make any good pics. If anyone attended the keynote in the big room and made some usable pics, you can contact me to put them up here.
I’ll have a look at Raptor at the HTML DB demoground myself, but I doubt they will let me near it with a camera

Update 22-sep-2005: Brian Duff has just published some real screenshots for project Raptor. These actually have some detail compares to mu blurry pictures.

Update 31-dec-2005: Added a comment at the top of the article about the release of an Early Access version of project Raptor.

Future of Forms

I just attended a session by Robin Zimmermann on the future of Forms and the move to SOA. He did his best to get the message across that FORMS IS NOT DEAD! Oracle has been saying this for a while but it just seems hard to accept for a lot of people. It looks like Forms is still an important and interesting product since the room was almost full.

He then went on to explain some of the new features in the latest Forms releases and what’s coming next. The main focus is on integrating with the J2EE/SOA world. He also gave a short introduction to JDeveloper and ADF for the ones that do want to make the switch from Forms to Java or (more likely) want to do both and integrate.

The two major new features of 10.1.2 he showed where JVM Pooling and End User Monitoring. JVM Pooling is what was really necessary to make the Java Importer useful. With the Java Importer you can “import” a Java class into your Form application. It will basically create a PL/SQL wrapper for the class so you can call it from any program unit or trigger. In the pre-10.1.2 releases this would mean that each Forms server process would have its own JVM. A JVM can be an expensive thing and can consume a considerable amount of memory. This is not something you want spawned for each individual user. Even more so, since you cannot set the parameters used for this JVM meaning it will use the defaults for your platform. With JVM pooling the JVM can be shared across multiple Forms sessions.

The other thing is the End User Monitoring. This uses Javascript to measure the time it takes to startup a form, open a form using open_form/call_form/new_form, execute a query and perform a commit. All this data is stored and you can analyze and graph it. The important thing is that it measures the time it takes on the client side, so it is really representative of the end user experience. You’ll have to use Enterprise Manager Grid Control to take advantage of this feature. It is not included in the normal server control of EM.

The things that really caught my attention were the JavaScript API and Java Callback planned for future releases. Forms has been able to call Java in a number of ways on both the client and the server for a while. But is has been very hard to do it the other way around; have some Java code control the Forms application. This is what the JavaScript API and Java Callback have to offer. The JavaScript API will make it possible to control the Forms application on the client by controlling it from JavaScript. The Java Callback is at the server end and allows a Java class to control the running Forms process. This sounds like music in my ears and is exactly what we need to slowly migrate from Forms to J2EE/web applications. I want to switch the control of our applications away from the menu in Forms and to the web application by using links and buttons on a webpage. However, I don’t want to navigate away from a running Forms applet without doing normal post-form processing warning a user about outstanding changes and perhaps committing these.

After the session I went up to Robin to ask about an expected timeframe for the JavaScript API and/or Java Callback. Unfortunately he couldn’t give any, but he did suggest another solution to my problem. It will require some work but it is doable. I should be able to create my own small Java applet running on the same page as the Forms applet. My own applet would be invisible to the user but can receive events from other applications (perhaps JavaScript on the client or some sort of communication from the server). My own applet can then make a call to Forms activating a WHEN-CUSTOM-EVENT trigger. That trigger could then do whatever processing is necessary. This is definitely something I will investigate further when I’m back at the office. Wouldn’t it be great if Oracle would publish some sort of whitepaper on this (if it isn’t there yet)? I will ask around at the Customer Advisory Board tomorrow.

I must say this session was a great way to start my official part of OpenWorld. Now off to lunch and hurry to the next session at 13:30.

ODTUG sessions on Sunday

Yesterday I had my first tasting of Oracle OpenWorld by attending two sessions by the ODTUG. The first one was from the J2EE SIG and was co-presented by both Shay Schmeltzer from Oracle and Paul Dorsey from Dulcian. Several alternatives for the different layers of a J2EE stack were discussed. Everybody seemed to agree on a choice for ADF Business Components for the persistence. The only real alternative for the controller is Struts (at the moment). The opinions on the view layer however differ. Paul still is a fan of JSP’s and doesn’t see JSF pick up at the rate Oracle would like. His advice was to stick with JSP for a while and get on the JSF bandwagon later. Shay was a bit more enthusiastic about JSF although he also advised to stick to JSP on existing JSP projects. However, if you’re going to start a new project it might be worthwhile to see if you can postpone the UI until later in the project so you can go for JSF straightaway.

Paul Dorsey had a comment about not liking the JHeadstart architecture. This caught my attention since we just went live with our first two JHeadstart projects. I asked Paul after the session what it is about JHeadstart that he doesn’t like. It was his opinion that the JHeadstart team was working backwards. They started out with the product they want generated (Struts and JSP/UIX) and worked backwards to create a tool to generate these. In his opinion you should start with a repository holding all your “business rules” and take it from there. It happens to be that he (and others) has been working on such a product, called BRIM. I will have a closer look at it next week.

The other ODTUG session I went to was the HTML-DB SIG. To me it was a good way to get to know HTML-DB. I hadn’t really seen the product before. I might have a look at it as an alternative for our more light-weight applications that we tend to build in PHP at the moment. It might also be a great alternative for simple reporting and graphing. Definitely something to look into.

First weekend in San Francisco

I made it! I’m in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld 2005 (and a bit of sightseeing). One of the first things I went to see is of course the Golden Gate bridge:

From a distance I wasn’t that impressed. Me being from the Netherlands, the country of water, dikes, windmills, bridges and other waterworks, am not that easily impressed by a bridge. To be honest I thought it didn’t even look that big. The next day I really went there and I have to take back my words. It really is impressive. I even walked up until the middle to take some pictures. For me that’s quite a challenge since I’m afraid of heights! It must have looked stupid to see such a tall guy (2m06 / 6′9″) walking on the wrong side of the footpath to avoid coming to close to the edge and acting a bit nervous as a stepped out on a sort of balcony for a photo opportunity

I spent the Friday afternoon and most of Saturday sightseeing the city. I only went to the Moscone center to register. Today (Sunday) I attended some sessions by the ODTUG for the J2EE and HTML-DB SIG’s. I was planning on doing some more sightseeing before the first keynote this evening, but my back just can’t handle it. I had a growth disorder as a child which will always leave me with a weak back. Combine that with a 11 hour flight, a way to short bed and walking up and downhill for two days and my back just said: NO MORE!

Coming to the up- and downhill walking; there are some seriously steep hills/streets here in SF. I’m only used to a completely flat country as the Netherlands, so this is something to get used to. I can already feel muscles that I didn’t even know I had

So much for the small talk. I guess I won’t have as much time for sightseeing the rest of the week. I’ll be going back to Moscone center in an hour for the first keynote address. Tomorrow things really kick of with a lot of sessions to attend and the OTN Underground night. Tuesday will be more sessions and an evening with both the Customer Advisory Board for Development Tools meeting and the bloggers dinner. I’m still hoping I can join the other guys/girls later that evening. Wednesday will be more meetings and at night the Appreciation Event. That leaves Thursday as the last day with even more sessions. In all these days I’m also planning on visiting the demogrounds a couple of times. Friday morning will be me flight back to Amsterdam.

I’ll try to keep this blog updated during the week.

Why is JHeadstart not at OOW2005?

This year, I’m lucky enough to be able to attend Oracle OpenWorld 2005 in San Francisco. As I was using the Schedule Builder to decide which sessions to attend, one of the first things I noticed is that there are no sessions about JHeadstart.

There are no sessions about Designer either. I can understand that, since Oracle has basically ended development on the Designer product.

What I don’t understand is why JHeadstart is not promoted at Oracle OpenWorld. It’s a great tool to increase your J2EE development productivity and it’s a great way for Forms/Designer developers to get to know the J2EE/ADF world. I really don’t understand this decision by Oracle.

I know JHeadstart is developed by Oracle Consulting from the Netherlands, but surely Oracle HQ is not suffering from the NIH syndrome. Steve Muench attended a four day seminar about JHeadstart in January 2005. Ever since, he’s been very enthusiastic about JHeadstart and even wrote a couple of postings on his blog and a very helpful JHeadstart Tutorial on OTN. I was hoping that Steve’s attention for JHeadstart would also make Oracle HQ interested. Apparently this didn’t help enough.

If any of you is worried about productivity when making the switch from Forms development to J2EE development, please have a look at JHeadstart. Even if you’re not making the switch from Forms but are just a J2EE/ADF developer, you should also have a look as it is a real productivity booster.

Let’s hope the JHeadstart team will be at OpenWorld next year.