Is Forms Dead?
Despite a clear statement of direction people are still asking if Forms is dead. Obviously ongoing support and enhancement of Forms is a well kept secret. Well now the reason for the secrecy can be revealed. In
Computer Weekly this week I found a half page advert looking for an Oracle Forms, Reports & PL/SQL developer. The company?
Freemasons Hall, Great Queen Street, London. So now I know why people are confused, its a masonic secret!
Seriously though, do we need Forms in these Java filled days. Let me give a few reasons why you may not want to lose your Forms developers just yet.
- Forms is a 4GL and as such is very productive when used to create data entry and update applications. Its architecture provides a lot of client side validation of data and it is tightly coupled to the database for performance and transactional integrity. Java is only now beginning to reach Forms level productivity for thse types of application.
- If you have existing Forms expertise it will be cheaper to exploit it than retrain or hire Java experts.
- You have invested in Forms, you started with Client/Server Forms, you have since moved to Web Forms. Your investment is still servicable and can be enhanced not just with Forms, but by having Forms particpate in an SOA environment.
- Forms can now call out to Java and through Java invoking services on other platforms
Just a few months ago my team were involved in assisting a partner to benchmark a large (5,000 concurrent users) new forms application. This was deployed against a Real Application Cluster database and ran on multiple load balanced mid-tier servers. Someone obviously forgot to tell this large multi-national consultancy that Forms is dead!
Forms is still a viable implementation option for your business and Oracle is committed to enhancing the platform, so don't give up on your Forms investment just yet.
