Building Complex Java Applications with Oracle 9i JDeveloper

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Building Complex Java Applications with Oracle 9i
JDeveloper
Dr. Paul Dorsey Dulcian, Inc. www.dulcian.com
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Survey

• Who is using Oracle JDeveloper for anything?
• in test
• in production
• Who is doing web development?
• JDev
• JSP
• UIX
• Web services
• .net
• Other

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JDeveloper History

• Oracle bought some code for Borlands J-Builder
  in 1997.
• JDeveloper 1.0 (1998)
• More or less useless
• JDeveloper 2.0 (1999)
• Still useless

• JDeveloper 3.0 (2000)
• BC4J DAC
• Finally the right idea!
• JDeveloper 3.2 (2001)
• Bug fixes
• First useful version
• JDeveloper 9i (2002)
• First good version
• Big rewrite
• Change in direction

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Where Does JDeveloper Fit?

• A Java development tool
• JDeveloper has lots of market competition
• Visual Café - Symantec
• JBuilder
• Forte
• A Java development tool that works with Oracle
• No real competition

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Where JDeveloper fits today

• Good tool for building Java applications
• Best tool for building Oracle-based Java
  applications
• Most of the solution for building JSPs or UIXs

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JDeveloper in the Development World

• Weaknesses
• Inefficient for application development
• Evolving support for JSP development
• Strengths
• Good IDE
• Extensible - wizards, property inspectors
  (customizers), toolbars, code generators
• Excellent Oracle database connectivity
• Supports all Java development
• Good user interface
• Rated high by reviewers, much better than 3.2
  release

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JDevelopers Short-Term Vision

• Close the gap with Form Builder on development
  efficiency for Web Development - JSP/UIX
• 6-12 months
• Support full enterprise-level data modeling
• 1-2 years
• Java client support is mature.
• Add other UML pieces
• Use cases

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Is Java all you need to deploy on the Web?

• NO!!!!
• Java Deployment
• JSP - Web
• Applet Web internal
• Applications Client/Server
• Each alternative requires different tools and
  languages

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Using Form Builder(the good old days)
Forms Client/Server

• Required Tools
• Forms
• TOAD

• Required Languages
• SQL
• PL/SQL

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Java Applications

• Client-server
• Java program runs on PCs JVM

• Required Tools
• JDeveloper
• TOAD

• Required Languages
• Java
• XML
• JDBC
• SQLJ
• SQL, PL/SQL

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Java Applets
Java applications running over a browser

• Required Tools
• JDeveloper
• TOAD
• Apache or IAS

• Required Languages
• Java
• XML
• JDBC
• SQLJ
• SQL,PL/SQL

• Other problems - Security
• Firewalls
• Secure Sockets

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Web Module (JSPs)

• Sell over the Internet
• Java back end, HTML front end

• Required Tools
• JDeveloper
• TOAD
• Apache or IAS
• DreamWeaver or FrontPage

• Required Languages
• Java
• XML a little
• JDBC
• SQLJ
• SQL, PL/SQL
• HTML
• JavaScript

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Using Java

• For PL/SQL programmers wanting to move to Java,
  there are some important conceptual differences
  to understand.
• Learning Java is more than just learning a new
  syntax.
• You need to take an object-oriented approach.
• Get Martin Fowlers book Refactoring Improving
  the Design of Existing Code(Addison-Wesley Pub
  Co, 1999)

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JDevelopers Long-Term Vision

• A fully integrated design and development
  environment
• Centralized repository
• Full UML integration
• The vision of what Designer and Developer never
  fully achieved
• Probably never integrate into Designer.maybe
• JSP is the main development direction.

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Is JDeveloper ready for production use?

• Client/Server style application development
• Yes (but it will take time)
• Web development
• Probably (but it will take a LONG time)
• UIX support
• Faster JSPs
• 9.05 end of year

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BC4J - Overview

• Main advantage over other development tools
• Primary way of handling database DML operations
• Overcomes hurdle of complex database interface to
  handle web-based applications
• BC4J features
• Builds a set of Java classes that wrap the DML
  commands and reference an XML document that
  stores the data structure
• Classes make JDBC calls to the database to take
  over insert, update, delete and lock functions.

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BC4J - Advantages

• BC4J classes can implement complex validation.
• Need to think carefully about whether this is the
  appropriate place for this function
• Reduced development time
• Can cache data to be shared among multiple users
• Allows for tuning capabilities

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Three areas of BC4J

• 1. Entities and Associations
• Cached copy of a portion of the database
• An entity is linked to, at most, 1 table
• Not needed for query-only objects
• 2. View objects and view link objects
• View objects that sit on top of entities (or
  nothing)
• 3. Data model
• Collection of views
• What the UI applications interact with

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Default Generator
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BC4J Files

• XML redundantly stores data structure of
  relational database
• Java classes contain complex logic and
  application calls used by other parts of
  application
• Java library provided by Oracle to handle JDBC
  generation

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Now 100 Java

• Slightly faster IDE
• Some compilation is faster.
• All in all a little faster.
• Much nicer user interface

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JDeveloper Class Diagram
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UML Modeling

• Java classes
• Quite good
• Useful?
• BC4J
• Only entity objects (not view objects)
• EJBs, Web Services
• Not sure I care
• Data Modeling
• Use Dulcians BRIM

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JDeveloper Activity Modeler

• Swim lanes and activities
• Vaguely familiar if you know Designer
• Workflow
• BRIM generates more code.

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Model-View-Controller (MVC)

• View
• Output page
• JClient
• Swing
• J2EE
• HTML
• Servlet
• JSP
• XML

• Controller
• Business Rules
• Navigation
• Controls content
• Always JAVA (mostly)

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Model

• Model
• Connect UI to the database
• BC4J
• EJB
• But it gets messy
• Controller functions can be anywhere
• View
• JClient
• Java in the application
• J2EE
• JavaScript

• Model
• BC4J explicitly supports business rules
• EJBs are Java so they support anything
• Database
• Triggers

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JDeveloper is 2 products(actually more)

• JClient
• Very complex
• Client/Server
• Can do anything

• J2EE
• JSP
• Framework
• Struts
• UIX

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JClient

• Swing components
• Java
• BC4J
• Lots of coding
• Needed for very complex applications
• Less to learn than J2EE

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J2EE (Youre not in Kansas anymore)

• The world is getting simpler, but less flexible
• Unless you work hard
• Fully open architecture

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J2EE The path to enlightenment

• Build basic JSP
• Using the JDeveloper Wizards
• By hand
• Build basic UIX application
• Using the JDeveloper Wizards
• By hand

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References

• Oracle 9i JDeveloper Handbook, Koletzke, Dorsey
  Faderman, (Oracle Press, 2002)
  ISBN 0072223847
• Oracle 9iAS Building J2EE Applications,
  Morrisseau-Leroy (Oracle Press, 2002)
  ISBN 0072226145
• Oracle 9i Application Server Portal Handbook,
  Vandivier Cox (Oracle Press, 2001)
  ISBN 0072222492
• Oracle 9i JDBC Programming, Jason Price, (Oracle
  Press, 2002) ISBN 0072222549 (not needed if you
  use BC4J)
• Java2 The Complete Reference (5th Edition),
  Herbert Schildt, (McGraw-Hill, 2002)
  ISBN 0072224207

• Struts Kick Start, Turner Bedell, (SAMS, 2002)
  ISBN 0672324725
• Oracle9i XML Handbook, Chang, Scardina
  Kiritzov, (Oracle Press, 2001) ISBN 007213495X
• Refactoring Improving the Design of Existing
  Code, Martin Fowler (Addison-Wesley, 1999)
  ISBN 0201485672
• Oracle 9i Web Development, Bradley D. Brown
  (Oracle Press, 2001) ISBN 0072193883
• The Java Class Libraries Volumes 1, 2, 3, Chan
  Lee, (Addison-Wesley)
• The Java Tutorial (series), Campione, et. al
  (Addison-Wesley)

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JSP/Java Extensions

• Look for third party resources.
• Type Java chart into any web search engine
• Dont reinvent the wheel.

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More Information about JDev 9i

• otn.oracle.com
• Products area
• The discussion forums are quite active.
• ODTUG lists
• Oracle support

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Contact Information

• Dr. Paul Dorsey paul_dorsey_at_dulcian.com
• Dulcian website - www.dulcian.com