ADF and EJB. Why so little samples / information

Question

Hi All,
I was wondering if other JDev / ADF developers have the same feeling as me in regards to ADF / EJB.
There is barely enough information and examples on using ADF with EJB. Seems that most examples and blogs are related to BC instead.
I was reading an article (sorry, don't have the link to it) not long ago that an Oracle Executive was asked if BC or EJB was Oracle's future and EJB was the answer. However, that doesn't seem to be the what most blogs and sample are about.
I know that BC has tight integration with ADF, but it's not a standards based back-end framework. We are locked in the ADF UI for all of our development, but not touching BC at all. All code is EJB compliant.
So, my request is:
- comments? do other developers out there feel the same way?
- bloggers, the great articles from "Frank Nimphius" and "Andrejus Baranovskis", not to mention others, can you guys post a little more on using ADF with EJB?
BTW: great article on that "http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/tips/fnimphius/ControlHintsWithPojos/controlHintsWithPojos.html" (How-to find and set control hints on POJO entities in bean Data Controls)
Thanks and Regards
Jonny Oenning

Answer 1

Hi!
I rised this issue long time ago - with TP3 I noticed regression in EJB/JPA support with ADFm (binding layer as referred by Shay). Following the development, I draw this conclusions:
1. Oracle is oriented toward J2EE standards, including the strategic orientation to EJB/JPA. The team that managed JDev 11g initial development phases was oriented toward EJB (but was replaced/fired sometime between TP2 and TP3).
2. Oracle decided that FMW 11g stack products as well as EBS migration from PL/SQL to EJB is not feasible in short time frame (I think that was poor judgment). So, the BCs got the push over the EJB and TP3/4 was biased toward BCs. Even the default Fusion technology stack is changed - in TP1/2 the Fusion Web project was ADF RC + EJB buy default and then changed to ADF RC + BC4J. Also the development guides were "rephrased".
3. As BC4J are proprietary Oracle technology, the are lacking many J2EE standard features and many strong points of the modern multi-tier architecture. Many developers are witnessing the performance / scalability issues as the BC4J are basically a mutant: they are SQL based concept wrapped into EJB for deployment! But they are not relaying on proven scalable J2EE technologies (like JPA/JTA, object caching etc.). They are trying to reinvent the wheel, decalratively offering the heaven of J2EE multi-tear architecture to old fashion SQL-focused architects/developers. But it is just a marketing - the truth is that BC4J are not and cannot be the replacement for proven J2EE architecture. They are trying to mimic the concepts of J2EE (like object-entity mapping, like JTA/JPA, like scalability and caching, transparent web-services exposition etc.) but they are lagging behind even J2EE 1.4 and we are facing the J2EE 6 in few months!
4. Oracle is aware that EJB is the future but they are trying to bridge the gap between their legacy code written mainly in PL/SQL. So they developed and they are developing the JDeveloper 11g in fashin that should support and serve for their primary goals - migration of their own old PL/SQL based products to new, J2EE, world (of BEA!).
So, anyone who is expecting the that Oracle JDeveloper is what they are marketing (full scale J2EE IDE) - is going to waste some time and money waiting the Oracle to finish it's half-way migration from PL/QL and Forms/Reports to PL/SQL + ADF RC! In few years from now.
Thus, if you need efficiency in J2EE standards development - try something else than JDeveloper. Or, as suggested by Shay, don't use overmarketed ADFm as it is not compatible with EJBs in scalable / clustered deployment! Yes, that is proven issue (but I wont elaborate here as it is already well elaborated in this forum in another tread but the Oracle guys wisely neglected that issue).
And beside few very very old and for me useless blog entries (one of which is not working in 11g as you may read in comments) there will be no much support for EJBs in this release of JDeveloper - I can bet!
But, as final message to the public, I'm still stuck with JDev and EJBs as. When you develop you own patterns, it is still the best combination for developing the scalable, high performance apps on Oracle FMW 11g platform - mandatory including several grid technologies that are making the difference in scalability of true J2EE apps and quasi-J2EE "Fusion" apps based on BC4Js "silently" wrapped in EJBs for deployment.
Regards,
PaKo