Version User Scope of changes
May 11 2009, 9:47 AM EDT (current) chriscmuir 8 words added, 1970 words deleted
Dec 18 2008, 4:48 PM EST shay.shmeltzer 400 words added

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yesIn attempting to convince others to adopt ADF, a brief-and-to-the-point discussion on the salient points of ADF are key. However care needs to be given to focusing on the needs, concerns and skillsets of the audience as much as the features to successful sell ADF & JDeveloper. The following expresses bullet-point ideas to convince Oracle Forms Programmers, Java programmers, and management to adopt ADF & JDeveloper at their organisation. How to convince "Oracle Forms programmers" to adopt ADF & JDeveloperFollowing are ideas that can be used to convince Forms programmers to adopt ADF & JDeveloper: JDeveloper has a modern, sophisticated IDE - The Forms IDE hasn’t really changed since 4.5, and lacks many of the features available in JDeveloper for the modern programmer. JDeveloper competes with modern tools such as Visual Studio, NetBeans etc, and works inside a dedicated desktop based IDE unlike Apex using a clunky web interface. JDeveloper and ADF promote two approaches to system design: simple wizards & editors & drag n drop, versus flexible coding - Forms users will be familiar with the wizard approach to application design, with the possibility of using the sophistication and flexibility of Java to break outside the bounds of the wizards. JDeveloper and ADF promote two approaches to system design: simple declarative properties, versus flexible coding - Forms and 100% Designer generation users will be familiar with setting properties to change functionality rather than writing bug prone programming. JDeveloper extends such declarative programming to all levels of development including validation rules, queries, LOVs and more. ADF has support for the familiar: runs, optimised and productive on top of an Oracle database - JDeveloper might be a Java tool, yet Oracle is the software vendor, and the first product it’s designed to work with is the Oracle database. With JDeveloper you can leverage your existing SQL, PL/SQL and Oracle database skills to develop web applications. ADF Faces utilises event/trigger based programming just like Forms - A user clicks on a button. A piece of code fires in the background. A familiar programming paradigm to any Forms programmer. A better approach then trying to interrogate the HTTP request/response/submit that other web frameworks promote. ADF recommends a complete end-to-end choice of JEE frameworks - Beginners in JEE development feel paralysed by the choice of frameworks, from modeling the database layer (eg. EJB, Hibernate etc) through the UI layer (eg. JSP, JSF etc). For Forms programmers Oracle recommends using ADF Business Components and ADF Faces RC, a completeend-to-end preordained solution. To quote Steve Muench "What really are the open-source alternatives to [ADF] that would allowsomeone who is a corporate enterprise application developer with skills using 4GL tools to build sophisticated Java EE applications? I would claim the answer is ""None, really". With all of the other available choices you need a very, very large amount of "roll your own" application pattern implementations. This point is not to be underestimated." ADF is the way of the future, the way of the past - Oracle is touting ADF as its solution for its Fusion future. But that's just marketing some will say. Yet many Oracle users have already used ADF’s offering in the past with Enterprise Manager, E-Business Suite 12 etc proving ADF is being used today. OraFormsFaces – you don't need to rewrite your entire Oracle Forms application - Thanks to Wilfred van der Deijl's OraFormsFaces efforts, ADF can be integrated with Oracle Forms via OraFormsFaces, leveraging current IT investments and, avoiding the "must rewrite all Forms in tech X" costly myth. How to convince "management" to adopt ADF & JDeveloperFollowing are ideas that can be used to convince management to adopt ADF & JDeveloper: Lower uptake costs and higher programmer productivity over traditional JEE - The road to JEE is littered with failed ORMs, UI frameworks and Java programs that fail to meet user requirements thanks to the complexity of JEE. ADF provides a large amount of declaratively configurable, ready-made implementations of all of the most common application building patterns you need to build an enterprise application on the Java EE platform, without losing the ability to leverage all the goodness of Java to extend the framework yourself when needed. ADF is built on industry standards, avoiding vendor lock in - ADF is built on industry standards (Java, XML, and others), that can run on any JEE application server, support building apps for any SQL92-compliant database, and has source available for supported customers. Supported by a major IT vendor - Support for open source products is haphazard across the entire software spectrum. With ADF when something goes wrong you can utilise the size and breadth of Oracle Corporation's own Oracle Support to provide bug workarounds and patches. Web 2.0 through ADF Faces RC - Users are demanding more sophisticated web interfaces given their experience with websites from organisation like Google. ADF Faces Rich Client (RC) delivers a rich set of web components that take traditional web-forms based applications to the Web 2.0 world. The ability to provide applications as a web-delivered service - If moving from an Oracle Forms legacy system, JDeveloper and ADF allows organisations to provide a web-delivered application, changing their systems from an internally focused application, to a publically available service. ADF is free if you already own OAS - For existing OAS licensed sites, ADF is free to deploy, leveraging your existing expenditure. Supports all phases of the application development lifecycle - JDeveloper with provisions for visual and declarative application development support, including database modeling, UML diagramming, page flow design, ADF BC component design and coding, web page WSYWIG editors, deployment, integrated testing-profiling tools, and so forth, provides comprehensive design time support for all phases of the application lifecycle that most corporate application developers need. Staff retention - Are your Oracle Forms IT staff leaving after getting bored by having to maintain your legacy systems? ADF provides apage's chance to work on a new technology which is compelling for staff. Training courses are available from Oracle and other parties - Detailed training courses are available allowing managers to plan a skills transfer or upgrade to the JDeveloper & ADF platforms. How to convince "Java programmers" to adopt ADF & JDeveloperFollowing are ideas that can be used to convince Java programmers to adopt ADF & JDeveloper:As Oracle ACE Directors John Stegeman and Chris Muir say "No matter what logical arguments you put forth ..... they [Java programmers] still believe ADF to be an unpalatable choice". It basically means the Java crowd isn’t listening to logical points and positive features of ADF & JDeveloper, you can argue until you’re blue in the face, they won’t move because they’re not interested in moving."In addition Steve Muenchcontents says "My experience is that since the typical "Java EE" guru is not able to put him/herself in the shoes of the "mere mortal" corporate application developer, it's hard for them to appreciate perhaps some of this added value [in JDeveloper and ADF]."Finally programmers are protective of their IDEs. Forcing JDeveloper down their throats will be counter-productive.As such a different approach is needed to convince a Java/JEE programmer on adopting Oracle's Java offerings. The approach needs to consider what Java programmers appreciate. They like: Free & open source software Available source code Software that can be integrated into any Java IDE The ability to pick and choose technologies (eg. Hibernate, JSF, Spring, Struts etc) Technology that makes JEE development easierIn addressing these, instead suggest to the Java/JEE programmers that they adopt two open-source options that are spins off from ADF & JDeveloper and Oracle, namely Eclipselink as a EJB3-JPA-Toplink derivative, and Apache Trinidad as a JSF component set.Toplink was considered at one time a leading JEE ORM before purchased by Oracle, and now that it hashave been open-sourced again as Eclipselink opens this preferred ORM to the Java community again. Apache Trinidad is an Oracle supported spin off of Oracle's ADF Faces JSF component set and provides a large set of web components.Another approach/opinion (Shay Shmeltzer)In recent years Java developers are more open to the concept of frameworks that simplify Java EE development. You can see this in the wide adoption of Spring, and the emergence of a framework such as SEAM.So one way to "sell" ADF to core Java EE developers it to explain it's value in a Java EE 5 world and draw parallels to other Java EE frameworks - and then to explain where ADF goes beyond what other frameworks offer. Specifically the fact that JPA/EJB 3.0 can be used along with JSF in ADF is key here since those are two widely adopted technologies in Java EE and ADF with JDeveloper can work very nicely with them.So assuming that using JSF and EJB/JPA are acceptable approaches the next step is to look at what is missing frommoved the core specs.On the JSF View front the main missing part is a comprehansive set of Ajax enabled components - this is exactly where ADF Faces Rich Client comes into play. It is similar in concepts to other JSF component framework - but offer a more complete set of components when compared to iceFaces, RichFaces, or backbase for example.On the JSF Controller front some of the common missing things are a conversation scope, bookmarking, and method invocations. Different framework out there try to address those aspects Shale and SEAM are two exampes and ADF Task flows is another example of a JSF based framework that solves those common needs. Again the ADF Controller is more complete then the other frameworks and doesn't force you to use a BPM engine to get the method invocation working. The reusability aspect of the task-flows inside other pages is another unique aspect.The next missing piece is binding of JSF UI to Business Services in a declarative way - this is a need that is recognized by the Java EE audience lately as evident by WebBeans and SEAM. Again ADF Model layer is providing a solution for this which is more comprehansive (not just JSF and not juse EJB) and has better tooling support.At the end of the day when you compare ADF to other Java frameworks the two key differentiator is the completeness and the coverage of the full MVC set of layers and the tooling provided for the framework which deliver a different development approach.--------------In addition it's also important to convince Java programmers where ADF & JDeveloper lie in the marketplace. The following points may help convince Java programmers to adopt ADF & JDeveloper: ADF is built on industry standards, avoiding vendor lock in - (See the same point in the "How to convince management section") Leading JSR-227 ORM to UI layer binding implementation - Oracle's was a lead implementer of the JSR-227 binding layer to tie JEE ORMs and UI layer together, allowing programmers to focus on a single binding layer API rather than calling disparate ORM and UI layer APIs. The ooh-ah Ruby on Rails experience has been available with JDeveloper for some time - Ruby on Rails, an area many Java programmers have jumped too, one of its key strengths is it demonstrates generated web application based on database tables. As John Stegeman notes that this is nothing new for JDeveloper and ADF which has had this ability for sometime, with a real IDE with wizards and editors to implement this, rather than a command-line tool. Additional reading Oracle Business Components for Java - Ten Key Benefits ADF Business Components Benefits in a Nutshell ADF Business Components J2EE Design Pattern Catalog J2EE for Forms and 4GL DevelopersContributorsThe above information was summarised from the following ADFEnterprise Methodology Google GroupGroup's thread "Why (or when to) adoptGoogle ADF":Group.
Chris Muir would like to thank all the contributors to that thread.