Oracle Forms migration to JDeveloper

Question

Hi everybody,
We got here a large pool of Oracle Forms and PL/SQL savvy resources. They mainly use Oracle Designer to generate Oracle Forms applications. Occasionnaly, they tweak the generated forms with PL/SQL triggers to adapt the application for special needs.
Now, they would like to go towards applications with HTML front-ends. With the advent of JDeveloper 10g (9.0.5), it might be the right time. With the ADF framework, screen painter, design time components, etc... there should be an easier learning curve for people with no java experience. Yes, we expect a couple of guys that should be very Java savvy but it should not be required for the entire pool of developer resources.
Personnaly, I investigate the business tier (or data tier) to identify changes in the development methodology required to address the java environment.
Currently, a good part of the business rules are defined within the database through the use of triggers. Should it stay the same with the use of ADF BC4J ? I mean, is there some situations where some kind of business logic or validation should reside within the BC4J model for the sake of performance or ease of development with ADF and the design time components? Maybe I should duplicate in java (within BC4J) some kind of validations like we used to do with Oracle Forms (through PL/SQL form triggers) to give the user a better UI response?
I need some guidelines here.
Thank you

Answer 1

Thanks Prasoon for you suggestions.
We're not heading toward application conversions from Forms to J2EE. Instead, we're thinking development methodology transformation from Designer/Forms to J2EE. But, in the beginning we're trying to minimize the efforts needed to learn the java (and J2EE) complexities. In the middle/long term, the developers should apply the correct techniques to build web applications with the right tools and proven J2EE standards.
Right now, we're looking at the Designer ADF Business Components Generator comming with JDeveloper 10g to see to what extent we can reproduce in BC4J what we can define in Designer for a module. In the first time, we intend to continue module definitions in Designer (instead of UML Activity or Class diagram). That part should sufice for the database definition and the model layer. For the view layer, I think that the new screen painter in JDeveloper can be used the same way the developers used the screen designer in Oracle Designer. That leaves the Struts Page Flow for the controler layer.
We know that JDeveloper has not evolved yet to the level of what Oracle Designer can do. There is a certain amount of stepping back in the design of an application. But we think we must step in the J2EE world some day and maybe JDeveloper 10g give us that opportunity. After further evaluation, if we think the gap is too large, maybe we'll wait for a next JDeveloper evolution.
Yves