Moving from Forms 10g to 11g

Remember that there is a new version PL/SQL engine taking care of calls to the database. I stumbled upon a strange error moving from 10g to 11g.

Now in 11g, the PL/SQL is more restricted in functions behaviour.

A function MUST return av value. So code that looked like this, roughly, in Forms 10g passed, but should not have passed. When run in a 11g environment there are strange behaviour of this new more robust view of a function. Some of these errors can be hard to find, but a &debug and/or

MESSAGE('Informative text');

does the trick.

Here is what passed earlier, but no longer during run-time. It compiles, but is giving strange errors in Forms 11g. Note that the solution is just to RETURN something in the THEN-clause.

FUNCTION MyFunc(i_personId) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS
  l_MyVariable VARCHAR2(80);

BEGIN
 IF some_expression 
   THEN NULL;
   ELSE
   /* Do something */
   RETURN('RESULT');
 END IF;

END;

What's the fuzz around Windows 8

I stumbled upon this presentation that gives you a short introduction.

http://www.slideshare.net/AnastasiaKl/windows-8-and-windows-phone-8-developer-story-anders-bratland

Windows 8 is here, not around the corner, but Oracle Forms/Reports/Discoverer applications might be run in this environment.

It will be exciting to see where this evolves. Because NOKIA Lumia 920 is here to stay, not in the commercial public sector. The increase will probable be noticed amongst hand held terminals that interact with internal traditional OLTP applications.

Web Logic Server 11g and the cloud is in the air

We have now, where I work, got the WebLogic Server [WLS] up and running. It can be recovered safely in case of hosts that looses control and has to reboot. The BEA way - remember WebLogic was bought from BEA by Oracle some years ago - is different than the Oracle Way. Study the nodemanager in your fave-WLS-book. The nodemanager can be set up in a way that is IS a windows bootstrap process for all the other processes - and God knows there are lots and lots of processes that should be up and running - that are needed for a Forms/Reports/Discoverer-based application.

The next step is to make sure that everything else is in place in terms of configuration and other platforms that are needed in order to get WLS in a controlled manner serve Forms/Reports/Discoverer-applications.

There are considerations in integration between Forms and Reports. The next step in that area is to choose between Jasper, BI Publisher or something else. BI Publisher is an expensive animal...and has imho an american view on reports distribution in general.

Further, 12c is around the corner, in a year or two there is a Forms/Reports/Discoverer 12c platform. Reports will still be around, despite what Oracle says. It is another marketing matter that Oracle wants you to move from Oracle Reports...

Oracle Forms 11g and WebLogic Server

Remember that there is no local flavour of the old and useful - imho - OC4J Oracle Application Server Containsers for J2EE 10g in the new Forms 11g environment.
That could - and will present a problem to be solved- in the developer environment of the application life cycle management.

Further, the WebLogic Server needs a larger footprint that the old way of doing application development using the OC4J locally on your - typically - PC. Test and production environments is another more solvable issue, since they are mostly Linux based environments. But the development usually are done using the traditional PC with XP.

I have seen trouble installing the Forms 11g on a Vista PC so do not try that at home, it might not even be certified. Please consult the certification table at My Oracle Support for information on that issue.

There are means to lower the foot print for the local WLS Server that is needed if you want do perform basic tests on your PC environment. There are parameters to set, you will find them on google.

Edition-Based Redefinition

Oracle 11g does include an interesting feature, the feature to upgrade your applications in a well ordered and controlled manner. You can test the application before you GoLive with it, and you do not loose any information. The users can do their job in the pre-upgraded version whilst you change the new version, test it and change to it.

Edition-Based Redefinition is, Tom Kyte says, the most important thing that happened since we got PL/SQL in the database. And, Mr Kyte always - in my opinion - knows what he says.

So, go for the manual pages and study EBR. You can have editions on SYNOMYNS, VIEWs and PL/SQL-modules in the database. And there are some rules to consider when you try this out. So carefully study the steps in the manual.