Oracle Fusion Development Tools

The roadmap for Oracle Fusion strategy is becoming clearer, thanks to most recent article by Steven Chan. So the question is, what will be the development skills required by Oracle Fusion Developer?

In order to answer this, lets have a look at current skillsets required for Oracle Apps, and then map those to Oracle Fusion.

Oracle Apps : SQL
Oracle Fusion : Future is bright for SQL.


Oracle Apps : PL/SQL
Oracle Fusion : Oracle's current stance is that pl/sql will be integrated part of their Fusion Product.


Oracle Apps : XML Gateway
In Oracle Apps, you can post XML Documents to XML gateway using protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, JMS & SMTP. For example Payables Invoices can be posted to XML Gateway by your trading partners. XML Gateway can also be used for outbound XML messages, by extracting data from Views/Tables.
Oracle Fusion : BPEL
BPEL supports all the above protocols. Hence I see no reason why BPEL will nor replace XML Gateway Product.


Oracle Apps : Oracle Forms
In Oracle Apps most of the Core data entry screens and many of the inquiry screens were built using D2k Forms. Oracle Forms can't run in the browser directly, hence this limitation was overcome by developing Applet called JInitiator.
Oracle Fusion : ADF with Faces[JSF] appears to be winning the race. Have a look at http://www.jsfcentral.com

Oracle Apps : Oracle Reports
Thousands of reports have been written using Oracle Reports uptill Release 12.
Not a single one of these will be carried forward to Oracle Fusion.
Oracle Fusion : XMLP
Yes, no surprises here. It is indeed XML Publisher.
Oracle Report is proprietry tool that works just with Oracle Database. Also, Oracle would like their reporting tools to converge into a single reporting tool for Peoplesoft, JD Edwards & Oracle Apps.
XML Publisher will hopefully become as powerfull as Oracle Reports by the time Oracle Fusion is released.


Oracle Apps : OA Framework
Oracle Fusion : The answer is same as that for Oracle Forms above. However one must continue to learn OA Framework, as its concepts like Personalizations, Extensions will be carried forward to ADF. Both are MVC based topologies.


Oracle Apps : Oracle Discoverer
Oracle Fusion : I think this will remain, as Discoverer is a part of Oracle Fusion Middleware. At the end of the day, XMLP is not a business intelligence tool.


Oracle Apps : Oracle Web ADI
Oracle Fusion : XMLP. I wonder why Web ADI will be needed, as letter can be printed off using XML Publisher itself.


Oracle Apps : Oracle Workflows
Oracle Fusion : This will certainly be replaced by BPEL too.



Clearly the future is :-
Web Services with BPEL
Java/J2EE
XML/CSS/XSL/JavaScript/ADF
SQL & PL/SQL

1. When Fusion?
-->Sometime in 2008, but I don't think Fusion will be fully ready by 2008. By 2008 you will have some part of its functionality ready.

2. J2EE & Java in Fusion?
ADF is a MVC design pattern. In response to the usage of Oracle Forms, I did accept that future of ADF in Fusion is uncertain, as they might build a new framework based on peopletools UI(DHTML based).
Java will also be used to develop new webservices, although PL/SQL now has similar capabilities too.

3. IDE?
It has to be jDeveloper if they go for ADF Faces.