Home » Other » Marketplace » How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? (oracle)
How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #451681] Fri, 16 April 2010 02:00 Go to next message
shaz
Messages: 182
Registered: June 2009
Senior Member
Hello Gurus,

There is a serious concern in my mind that i want to ask to the senior members of this forum that what will be the future of the developers working in forms and reports?
As oracle Apps is implementing in my company by ORACLE, it is said that there is nothing we could do post implementation. Whats the future of forms and reports developers?

Do developers like me have to migrate to Java or .NET or other technology?

And also what are the options if oracle forms and reports have unhealthy future? What about going for Siebel or OBI tools.

Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #451716 is a reply to message #451681] Fri, 16 April 2010 05:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
qafe
Messages: 1
Registered: April 2010
Location: The Netherlands
Junior Member

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Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #452070 is a reply to message #451681] Mon, 19 April 2010 22:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kevin Meade
Messages: 2103
Registered: December 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Senior Member
A website that locks up IExplore and spins my CPU.
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #452408 is a reply to message #451681] Wed, 21 April 2010 23:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
djmartin
Messages: 10181
Registered: March 2005
Location: Surges Bay TAS Australia
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Go to http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/forms/index.html and look at the "Statement of Direction".

It may be old but it is still less resource hungry than the new stuff.

David
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #454889 is a reply to message #452408] Sat, 08 May 2010 02:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ab_trivedi
Messages: 460
Registered: August 2006
Location: Pune, India
Senior Member
Hi Senior Members,

I do have the same concerns as Shaz. Few days before I also posted the almost same query but did bot get any satisfactory reply.

AT
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #454936 is a reply to message #451681] Sat, 08 May 2010 10:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kevin Meade
Messages: 2103
Registered: December 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Senior Member
This is must one man's opinion.

Oracle's statement of direction says they will continue to support forms/reports indefinitely. It also says if you read between the lines, that new development should be done using java tools (eg. their Jdeveloper or something else).

Additionally, Oracle forms/reports has lost some functionality as a complete toolset. Most notably, there is no Oracle Graphics anymore. It is neigh on imposible these days to do graphing in Forms and I have no clue what people who had a huge investment in Oracle Graphics, did with all those graphs they had. None of the Oracle offered migration plans for graphics was in my opinion very effective.

I am a huge Oracle Forms fan. In my 30 years experience in IT, Oracle Forms stands out as the greatest developer platform I have used. Though it had its limitations, its productivity curve has yet to be matched by any other tool that has passed before my mind and fingers. I and many of my developer friends have searched high an low for a decade to find a suitable replacement for Oracle Forms. Something that is as easy to learn, and easy to build with. We have tried many things and have been dissappointed with all of them.

That said, I look around me and see lots of applications built in Oracle Forms/Reports at my company still in use, but no new development at my company being done in Oracle Forms/Reports. It has all gone the way of Java. I think java is expensive, slow, and error prone to work with, and I feel it is yet one more proof that the rest of the world can be wrong. Developer tools come and go. Java will eventually be dropped when the next "big idea" comes around. Till then, if you want to survive as a developer, you need to do java.

Maybe that is why I see more promise in working on the data side these days. I take the approach that if I can teach my database new tricks then I don't have to get the hundreds of programmers who write apps against my databases to roll over. The more the development world goes the way it is, the more I see the value of the database. If we have to use such crappy tools as Java, then getting the database to do more means needing less from the development side. Thus the right presentation of data and APIs from the database can take weeks, even months off the development effort. Of course it works even easier in reverse. The less you pay attention to the database presentation of data and database APIs, the more expensive it will be for you to write that Java app.

Indeed I have decided that if the database does a good job of presenting data perspectives for an application, then it is immaterial what tool you use to develope the application. In the end this is a good thing because by choosing the Oracle Database and making it do its job, I have reduced my project team's development burden, and given freedom to my project team to do tool selection by whatever criteria they deem appropriate. This goes a long way toward the success of any project.

Good luck, Kevin
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #455046 is a reply to message #454936] Mon, 10 May 2010 01:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
djmartin
Messages: 10181
Registered: March 2005
Location: Surges Bay TAS Australia
Senior Member
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I agree whole-heartedly with Kevin. At my current site the 'powers at be' have swallowed 'java' 'hook, line, and sinker'. And guess what, after millions of dollars of development, they have a system that can support six to ten simultaneous users.

Writing database stuff in the Java layer, one of the theories pushed by the ivory dwelling university developer wannabes DOES NOT SCALE. Reading the whole table across the network to get a count of the number of entries in a table to display at the bottom of the screen is NOT the way to do it!

Java programming at many sites is like the way that newbies wrote assembler level code thirty years ago.

Writing code is stupid!! Get a tool that does it for you.

Kevin, APEX is sort of okay. Simple things are fairly quick. It does have an Access and Excel sort of conversion tool.

David
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #467897 is a reply to message #455046] Wed, 28 July 2010 03:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
FredC2
Messages: 2
Registered: July 2010
Location: germany / Munich
Junior Member
Hello Kevin, Hallo Kevin,

I have tried several times to install Forms 11g on my computer - without any success. For my last try I had to download several (zipped!) GB of software (Weblogic Server, Forms and Formspatch).
What about the lucky (and productive!) days where everything for the Forms Builder was just on one (1) CD.
In fact, I have still running some client/server 6.0 forms applications which do not need any Internet stuff, and if we would need this feature, we would just use remote deskops. Furthermore we will be that brave that we keep these applications running for a long, long time, perhaps somedays in a VM XP-Box...

In regards of user friendliness of the GUI on one side and development and maintance costs on the other side Forms applications are absolutly unbeatable. I guess if we have to develop these applications today with Java/Eclipse, Swing or whatever, the costs would be several(!) 10 times higher and the GUI would not be mutch "better" (spoken in a positive way). But now I'am giving up and my times as a long, long lastings Forms fan will end (Neutral)

Unfortunately Oracle has blownup Forms incredible from version to version - now it's going to burst, I think.
I'am really sorry for ORACLE that they are going to kill one of it's roots.
Perhaps it's like the "Video killed the radio star" story (but video at least was an improvment).

@David
APEX is for me just some kind of (very) weak Forms surrogate. I will wait some years to see how this tool will be maintained and perhaps several times renamed and restructed(;>)


Best Regards, Heiko
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #467898 is a reply to message #467897] Wed, 28 July 2010 03:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
djmartin
Messages: 10181
Registered: March 2005
Location: Surges Bay TAS Australia
Senior Member
Account Moderator
Perhaps you should try Forms 10g. I agree, 11g looks like a pain, as is 11g database. They both remind me of trying to run an early Forms 9i installation, lots of aggravation and Metalink TARs.

David
icon10.gif  Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #468215 is a reply to message #467898] Thu, 29 July 2010 03:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
FredC2
Messages: 2
Registered: July 2010
Location: germany / Munich
Junior Member
yes, there was a good and quite slim package available with just "IAS with Forms and Reports", but with V10 you need to struggle with Webutil and it's using the IAS, which becomes obsolete with V11.
I really suggest that Oracle re-introduce the client/Server mode for Forms, withount any Application server stuff, THIS would be cool Cool Perhaps they can call it "Forms & Reports Retro Edition V12".

Beste Regards, Heiko
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #538025 is a reply to message #468215] Tue, 03 January 2012 10:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
miaurman
Messages: 10
Registered: December 2011
Junior Member

Although this thread has not been updated in a while, we finally got a GREAT presentation by Lucas Jellma and Grant Ronald about future of oracle forms.
Its called "The Future of Oracle Forms is .... FORMS"
I suggest everyone check it out
I can not do links but you can see the prsentation by searching for "lucas jellma future of oracle forms" its the first result.
Happy reading
Re: How long will Oracle forms & Reports survive??? [message #538048 is a reply to message #538025] Tue, 03 January 2012 12:44 Go to previous message
Littlefoot
Messages: 21806
Registered: June 2005
Location: Croatia, Europe
Senior Member
Account Moderator
Thank you for sharing the information!

Presentation is located here: The Future of Forms is ... Forms (and some friends) (UKOUG, 2011).
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