Re: [Oracle Forms replacement] Ways to start this project

[james]

On Saturday, March 03, 2012 12:52:33 AM Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:

> On 1 March 2012 14:20, Mihail Daskalov <address@hidden> wrote:

> > Probably <quote>‘Oracle Forms has the ability to use another database

> > because of its transaction and database triggers replacement.’

> >

> > </quote> refers to the old “Oracle Open Client Adapter for ODBC”. You

> > can see this topic

> > https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=495283

> >

> > Unfortunately it is no longer developed or supported (AFAIK).

> >

> > Oracle Forms (actually Procedure builder component) included a Client

> > implementation of the PLSQL language (yes PLSQL is not only Oracle

> > Server language).

> >

> > The lack of FREE client runtime is major problem with Oracle Forms and

> > Oracle ADF. Once Oracle Forms Runtime Client/Server was free (no cost)

> > for use. Then it was desupported and only Forms Server (iAS Enterprise

> > Edition) was left. Then BC4J and JDeveloper emerged as some

> > alternative, which was later named ADF Swing. It was still client

> > server, but WAS NOT FREE. Now it is also being desupported (in

> > JDeveloper 11.1.1.5 and 11.1.2), with only ADF JSF left, which is not

> > client server.

> >

> > The only commercial alternatives I know for Client/Server programs are

> > Java with Swing and JDBC (possibly there are some frameworks that help

> > a little), and Microsoft .NET with Windows Forms components, or

> > eventually LINQ , Entity Framework and Silvelight (but at the MS sight

> > things are quite fragile in my opinion also).

> >

> > It would be good to have something on which to start building upon a

> > Free toolkit for Client Server programs.

> Hi,

> Thanks for outlining the taste of Oracle's business. Here's my take.

>

> I believe the Free World has no visible interest in a free ~1-to-1

> replacement for such tools (tools that once became popular because of

> their freeware aspect). That is because developing replacements of

> something that changes itself is always a short-term goal and

> potential success is not very rewarding. The Free World seeks for

> stability - products that can be utilized for years, software

> developed on current and near-future requirements.

 

There are other forms products in the world for which a replacement is wanted - on VMS there is DecForms - most often found in the FIMS language .IFDL file.

 

afaik - there is no equivalent forms definition language for ncurses or anything else into which one could readily change this very capable forms definitions (and function exits) into a linkable object on Linux.

 

Agreed taking on all of Oracle Forms is a big task - perhaps this smaller task is a more suitable goal?

 

>

> The trouble for me is that out of all consultants that would be

> natural partners for such a free initiative some wouldn't dream of

> stability/predictability of software components since their success

> lies in their knowledge of tools that are affected by changes. Some

> others are in gray area but they rarely seem to be early adopters what

> makes it hard to gain momentum (users are welcome contributors in

> FOSS).

>

> Conversely, most of the free software enthusiasts are not interested

> in this kind of tools. So unless someone does really solid 'market

> research', I am afraid we're left without any large group of interest

> but with fair amount of wishful thinking. This is why I would suggest

> taking less ambitious challenges so goals can be achieved before

> situation (especially technology) changes again in a painful way.

>

> --

> regards / pozdrawiam, Jaroslaw Staniek

>  http://www.linkedin.com/in/jstaniek

>  Kexi & Calligra (kexi-project.org, identi.ca/kexi, calligra-suite.org)

>  KDE Software Development Platform on MS Windows (windows.kde.org)

>

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