Want to know how to call Web Services from Forms 10g?
I've written a new paper on calling Web Services from Oracle Forms. This is based on 10.1.3.1 of JDeveloper which creates the proxy for calling the web services. (and has a few twists and turns in it)
The paper is written and ready to go but I want to give it a sanity check. So if anyone has 45 minutes and is willing to commit to reviewing the paper, I will send an advance copy to you.
Read more!The downside of management
Now I never thought that I'd be sad not to be traveling but sometimes I miss the bad good old days of a new and excitingly familiar hotel rooms. I seem to have much less time for that kind of thing now that I'm all growed-up having resolved not to be one of these freeloading-turn-up-for-a-10-minute-customer-meeting-now-where's-the-pool-at kind of managers - oh no not me... (I reserve the right to retract or otherwise modify this statement depending on the location and venue concerned)
In this case I'm missing out on the EOUC 07 in Amsterdam. We've got a bunch of people on the ground in Europe (Grant and Frank for example) who are somewhat more local than I am now and arguably more talented.
EOUC should be a great conference, knowing many of the folks that are organizing it and looking at the content I think it's destined to be come a regular must-do on the European event circuit.
My friends in "The Office" (no not that one) have released a discount code specially for GroundBlog readers (and oh yeah and OTN subscribers - forgot about that little 5 million strong community) which Justin has mentioned in the OTN TechBlog. So go for it - make me jealous!
Now if you're confined to the good Ol' USofA or otherwise have an excuse to go to Las Vegas next month, remember that Co-author Peter and I will be appearing in the exclusive Fusion Development all day workshop at Collab 07 (Sunday 15th - get a free copy of the book!) - we were tossing around the idea of wearing Elvis costume, but if you don't come along, then you'll never know. ..
Thank you; Thank-you-very-much
Why is Forms not available in 10.1.3
In looking through the OTN mail lists today I noticed 4 separate threads asking why Forms is not in the 10.1.3 release of the application server.
The worrying thing is, that if you read between the lines, people are coming to all sorts of conclusions about why this is happening.
The reasoning is simply that the demands for the technology for the J2EE stack are such that more periodic releases are required...while less so for the Forms/Reports stack. So, with Forms we released with 9.0.2, 9.0.4 and 10.1.2R2 - but not with the releases that were in between these versions.
This is documented (if you look for it) but lets face it, its much more fun to speculate than seek out the truth!
So, no great mystery!
Oracle Forms and SOA - An Executive Summary
I see alot of confusion around SOA in general, and in particular, how it relates to Oracle Forms. One of the biggest misconception I see is that SOA is technology based. Migrating Oracle Forms to J2EE (for example) doesn't "make them SOA". And there is a real danger when chasing the goal of "I need to be SOA" that you end up throwing out applications which have worked perfectly well for years and on which you core business is based.
To try and address this misconception, we have published an Execute Summary.
What is faster for development: Oracle Forms or Oracle Jdeveloper
Its a question that comes up all the time and last week it came up on the ODTUG email lists.
I thought that for all those people who are not members of ODTUG I would post my response.
JSF & Container Security Revisited
Frank and I have been worrying at this issue like a bone for what seems to be at least two years in search of the perfect solution. I had made some progress a while back with my JSP proxy pattern and although that works for me some people seemed to have problems with it and it lacked a certain elegance.
Anyhow, Frank revisted the issue and has come up with a much nicer solution which build on the proxy pattern using a servlet instead and a JSF PhaseListener to manage the problem of reporting errors back to the JSF page.
It also looks like we've identified a more elegant solution in release 11 of the Application Server, but that's specific to the OC4J container rather than the generic approach Frank has blogged about.
In the slightly longer term it does look like JSR-196 (Java Authentication Service Provider Interface for Containers) my finally provide for a standardization at the API level that will provide a solution which is both elegant and standard. However, the JCP.ORG site seems strangly reluctant to reveal the contents of the proposed final draft.
I did it!
I mentioned last week I was doing something I'd never tried, (or really contemplated doing). Well the good news is I did it!
Combined SIG - Forms, Client/Server Apps and SOA
Tuesday I did two presentations at the UKOUG combined SIG. Was pretty pleased with the turn out. About 50 people in each presentation, and no suprise to see mainly a Forms audience.
The first presentation I did was showing how to build Swing client/server applications with ADF. I did a master/detail with look-ups, searching, key triggers and a second dialog for editing the detail record; all with 2 lines of code!.
The second presentation I did was "Keeping your Forms application live" in which I touched on strategy, the upgrade process and performance.
Peter Sechser, Vice President at PITSS, then presented how PITSS can help you maintain your Forms applications.
I have sent my presentations to UKOUG so should be up on their website very soon.
What I'm up to this weekend...mad fool
You know how sometimes things can seem a good idea at the time but in the cold light of day...
Well a rash decision I made about 6 months ago is come home to roost this Sunday..doing this is most definitely not something I thought I'd ever be doing...but there you go, we all have rash moments...hopefully will be back on line on Monday!
A Swing back to Swing
The last couple of weeks has seen a proliforation of work around Swing. For the past couple of weeks (on and off) I've been rebuilding a Forms application in Swing as part of a proof of concept. Next week I am presenting "Building Client/Server Applications with Java Swing and ADF" at the UKOUG Super SIG, and Oracle ACE Steve Muench has just published a new article on ADF Swing as well.
Migration: Forms to .NET
I attended the UKOUG .Net SIG in London yesterday. Two topics were of particular interest. The first, by Xicon, "From Forms to .NET, the keep it simple approach" and "Can Oracle Forms applications be migrated to .Net" by ATX Software.
Oracle Forms and SOA for ISVs
I did the keynote presentation at an event in our London office yesterday which was around the message of "Moving your Forms applications to an SOA world".
Fusion Workshop at Collaborate 07
If you're intending to come to the Collaborate (IOUG / AOUG / Quest) conference in Vegas this year (April 15-19) be sure to check out the university sessions. Peter Koletzke and myself are running a full day session "Web Development with JDeveloper 10g for Forms and PL/SQL Developers" - of course it's not confined to Forms / PL/SQL developers it's really aimed at anyone who wants to learn about the core development techniques underlying Fusion. It'll be a pretty intensive day but probably the best quality and value bootstrap into Fusion technology that you can possibly get. Plus you get a free copy of our book if you one of the first 40 or so to sign up.