Jheadstart will be integrated into Jdev 9.0.5

Question

In JHeadstart new feature direction, it will be
integrated into Jdeveloper 9.0.5, that is when Jdeveloper
released all body needn't to buy standalone JHeadstart
like now.
Is this thinking right or wrong ?

Answer 1

Ok, I think the confusion is caused by an unfortunate phrasing from our side. What we meant with "integrated in Jdev 9.0.5", is not that JHeadstart as a product will be gone. All we meant to say there is that we will make JHeadstart compatible with jdev 9.0.5 and ADF.
The JHeadstart team is thrilled about the ADF initiative, we think it is great technology. With JHeadstart we will 100% align with ADF, but Jan is right we have to work out the details of what this exactly means. Here is a summary of our current plans:
Our first goal is to release a new JHeadstart version end of August (2003) compatible with the current jdev production version
(9031/904). As you probably know, this release adds support for JSP and Struts. UIX and MVC Framework support will stay in.
After this release, we will focus completely on ADF integration. We have identified the following integration areas:
- Use ADF data binding. We have to look in more detail into the ADF binding, but as we see it right now, some of the more
trivial JHeadstart mvc processes/struts actions can go away, like BrowseDataSourceSet and HandleTableEvent. Standard actions
like browsing, scrolling and save one record can be done declaratively with ADF data binding. However, more complex save
actions like we support in SaveDataSourceSet will remain.
- Add ability to use JSTL and EL in generated JSP pages (in the upcoming release, we use all Struts tag libs)
- Replace our custom BC4J generator with the Designer BC4j Generator within the JHeadstart Designer Generator
- Upgrade MVC Framework to ADF controller (ADFc) (Note that ADFc will not yet be available in 905 preview).
Apart from ADF integration, we would like to enhance the JHeadstart Application Generator significantly in future releases, for example, generating wizard style layouts, multi-select LOV's, shuttles, unlimited nesting of groups, etc.
In summary, some of the JHeadstart runtime components and some JHeadstart handler functionality will become obsolete with ADF.
However, the Application Generator, driven from the JHeadstart application structure file and ADF meta data, will remain a significant productivity booster, as well as some of the more sophisticated JHeadstart Struts actions.
Also, the JHeadstart Designer Generator adds significant value on top of the Designer BC4J generator: it allows you to
migrate not only the Model, but a complete application including the View and Controller.
One of the really nice things of JHeadstart-ADF combination is that after you have generated a "second-cut" application
with Jheadstart, you should be able to use the ADF Struts visual page flow modeler and ADF layout editor to pick up the generated
struts-config, and generated uix/jsp pages and finish off your application with visual aids.
Hope this clarifies a bit how we see JHeadstart with respect to ADF.
Steven Davelaar,
JHeadstart Team.