Every now and then we get a question on the OTN forum that basically says: "I want to start learning development with JDeveloper (and ADF) where do I start?"
So I figured I'll write down my canned answer here and in the future I can just point people to this entry.
First step -
Learn the Java language (at least the syntax) - while it might seem that you can do a lot in JDeveloper without coding any Java line - at one point or another you will need to code - so start by picking up your favorite "Java for dummies in 7 days with no previous knowledge" type of book and learn the basics of the language.
Don't have money to spend on an actual book try these two resources:
Thinking in Java - a good free online book
Sun's online tutorials
While you are learning the basics of the language - you can use JDeveloper as your coding/running/debugging environment.
To understand how to do this use the Introduction to the IDE Tutorial
ok, so you got the basics of the language down and you know how to do a loop and define new variables. Next, you probably want to start learning ADF as a way to simplify your overall development.
Start with the ADF Learning Page.
If you are just beginning with Java and/or coming from a Forms/Powerbuilder/VB type of development background. you should probably choose the left column to follow (this uses ADF Business Components - and will give you the most out of the box, no coding experience).
Start with the tutorial - which will take you about a day to complete - and will give you an impression of the development process and if you actually read the explanation in it and not just follow the step-by-step instructions you will also understand what you are doing and not just how you are doing things.
Here it is important to note that some people prefer to go to instructor lead type training. We have those as well.
This page has the Java/ADF course list: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/collateral/training10g.html
You'll see there a basic Java course to help you learn the language, and another course which is called "OracleAS 10g R3: Oracle ADF for Forms/4GL Developers" - and is the ADF basics course.
Taking these two courses will get you approximately to the same place as the previous steps I detailed - although you'll probably have better understanding of ADF at this stage from the instructor lead training.
I should point here to two additional resources you might want to reference at this stage:
one is the "Oracle JDeveloper for Forms & PL/SQL Developers : A Guide to J2EE Web Development" book that you can buy on Amazon. As you'll see there it gets great reviews.
The other is the page we put in place for people coming from a Forms background trying to explain a lot of the JDev slang in Forms terms.
See: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/collateral/4gl/formsdesignerj2ee.html
Now comes what I regard as the "must do step" - read through the ADF Developer Guide. After you played a bit with JDeveloper and ADF, this book will give you the inside scoop on what ADF does and how it does it.
It's a big book but it is worth reading it before you start doing any serious development - having the knowledge before you start to code will save you a lot of hours later on.
At this stage you should have quite a good foundation that will let you start developing your application. Once you do serious development you are sure to run into questions that weren't answered in your previous reading, this is where the OTN discussion forum alnog with all the blogs out there come into the picture as the source for the community knowledge.
Add to these the annual Oracle Develop conference which runs as part of Oracle Open World, and the other technical conferences such as ODTUG and IOUG and you have your learning experience complete.
Now it is time for you to start sharing the knowledge you have gathered and help the newbies - start a blog, do a presentation in a conference, post answers on the OTN forum, or just add entries to the Oracle Wiki and help build the JDeveloper community.
Comments (12)
I've been learning Java, JDeveloper and ADF framework and I recently saw in the new 11G docs a 2 Day Java Developer Guide;
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28765/toc.htm
I've scanned through the first half and found it very useful
- Building a class to make a JDBC connection
- How to link that class up to a JSP page, querying and updating data
The second half looks at JDBC in more detail and then steps through a Master-Detail ADF page.
Cheers
Posted by Craig | January 15, 2008 4:15 PM
Posted on January 15, 2008 16:15
While I agree that this tutorial is a nice intro to using JDBC, in reality the solution that ADF offers is much simpler and more powerful than hard-coding JDBC, especially for building applications that connect to the DB and present data in Web pages. So while it is a nice thing to know I don't think you have to read through this to work with ADF.
Posted by Shay Shmeltzer | January 15, 2008 4:29 PM
Posted on January 15, 2008 16:29
This is really helpful to all of us that want to get started with JDeveloper. We are an Oracle E-Business Suite 11i shop so I'm still working with Forms and pl/sql. I have the ADF Developer’s Guide For Forms/4GL Developers manual and tutorial. Do you know of any plans to develop a tutorial to learn or use JDeveloper with E-Business Suite?
That would be a huge tool for us to get experience with JDeveloper and be ready for upcoming versions of E-Business Suite.
Posted by Matt | January 16, 2008 10:05 AM
Posted on January 16, 2008 10:05
Matt,
There are two aspects for using JDeveloper with EBS.
For customization you are actually going to use JDeveloper with the OAF framework (not the ADF Framework).
Information on this is here:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/applications/development_pesonalization/index.html
The other option is to build ADF based application that communicate with EBS - this is usually done through the Web services that EBS exposes as interfaces.
There is a tutorial that shows how to do this ADF on top of Web Services for Siebel here:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/fmw4apps/siebel/index.html
The concept would be similar for EBS.
Posted by Shay Shmeltzer | January 16, 2008 2:04 PM
Posted on January 16, 2008 14:04
Thanks for the links, Shay!
Posted by Matt | January 18, 2008 11:51 AM
Posted on January 18, 2008 11:51
Hi Shay,
Any dates of the availability of a draft of the dev guide for EJB/JPA for 11g ?
Posted by Nart | January 22, 2008 3:16 AM
Posted on January 22, 2008 03:16
Thanks for showing me the front door to ADF and JDev, Shay! It'll definitely help this crusty old EnterpriseOne developer migrate to the new world!
Posted by Dave | February 6, 2008 1:43 PM
Posted on February 6, 2008 13:43
Nart, I'm not sure we'll have a developer guide for EJB/JPA. After all there are multiple books out there about EJB/JPA. When you combine EJB/JPA into an ADF application then the developer guide's chapters about the ADF Binding and ADF Faces will be the ones you'll want to read.
Note that we already have a tutorial in the JDeveloper 11 cue cards that shows how to use EJB/JPA with ADF.
Posted by Shay Shmeltzer | February 6, 2008 1:57 PM
Posted on February 6, 2008 13:57
Look, people can learn from Thinking in Java and Sun's online tutorials but when they start JDeveloper then they might ask "how to get all the samples from the book and Sun web site run in JDeveloper?"
Make sense?
Regards,
Ming Man
Posted by Ming Man | February 10, 2008 3:04 AM
Posted on February 10, 2008 03:04
Ming - this is why I pointed to the first JDeveloper tutorial that teaches you the basics of the IDE such as how to create a new workspace/project and Java class and run/debug it.
Posted by Shay Shmeltzer | February 11, 2008 11:24 AM
Posted on February 11, 2008 11:24
Thanks Shay.
Info that you have provided here is simply great.
Thanks a lot!!!
Posted by Prasad | January 9, 2009 5:15 PM
Posted on January 9, 2009 17:15
Hi Shay,
I'm new with Jdveloper and ADF.
Good post.
Posted by Anonymous | March 4, 2009 9:35 AM
Posted on March 4, 2009 09:35