1	What Do I Need to Know to Be Productive as a Fusion Web Developer?
2	Objectives of This Session Focus on skills needed for working with Fusion technologies Wednesday’s session contains more about the actual technologies Relate one example of an Oracle shop converting to these technologies Successes Lessons learned Transmit information that can help your transition into this world 10:30 and 1:30 sessions on Wednesday focus on techniques
3	Agenda Quiz questions ADF Business Components ADF Faces RC and ADF Model ADF Task Flow How one shop integrated all of this
4	What is Fusion? “It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!” Fusion Applications Next version of E-Business Suite (Apps) Fusion Middleware Tools for building and running the applications (and your custom apps) Fusion Architecture How to assemble various technologies to build FA How to connect FM pieces
5	What is ADF? Application Development Framework Available in JDeveloper (10g, 11g) Common method for working with various technologies Easily connects the layers of the app Database User interface and bindings Controller Implies certain technologies
6	Which ADF Technologies to Use? Core technologies used to create Fusion Applications ADF Business Components ADF Faces Rich Client ADF Controller Other high-level technologies or strategies also used SOA, ESB, Business Rules, WebCenter Need to look into those, too, at the architecture level
7	Where Do These Technologies Show Up?
8	Agenda Quiz questions ADF Business Components ADF Faces RC and ADF Model ADF Controller How one shop integrated all of this
9	ADF Business Components ADF BC Persistence Storing data in and retrieving data from a database O/R mapping Translating relational database thingies to object-oriented (Java) whatsits Handles mechanics of creating SQL statements and of communicating with the database
10	AD BC: What You Need to Know? Good working knowledge of the features of this framework Entity objects for database views or tables View objects for queries View links for master-detail coordination Declarative validation Declarative UI hints Declarative LOVs Declarative query criteria Light to no Java Minimal to no Groovy
11	Why Declarative? Arguably more productive Leverages native strengths of the frameworks All frameworks can be extended The less you extend the better You can blame the framework for problems Version upgrades are potentially easier You take advantage of framework bug fixes automatically Same concept as database upgrades
12	Sample ADF BC Development
13	Agenda Quiz questions ADF Business Components ADF Faces RC and ADF Model ADF Controller How one shop integrated all of this
14	ADF Faces Rich Client Components used to define the user interface Nearly 150 “tags” JavaServer Faces (JSF) compliant Run in a JSF environment – JSF servlet Includes “rich” behavior Components react to user interaction before the page is resubmitted A.k.a., PPR, AJAX Partial Page Rendering Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
15	ADF Model ADF Data Controls Provides list of components or groups of components for a node in the data model “Drop as” options ADF Bindings Prebuilt connection from the ADF BC to the UI Drag and drop action above does the work
16	ADF Faces and ADF Model: What You Need to Know How to work with drag and drop features in JDev XML at a reading level Code is XML-based Declarative mostly You may occasionally want to type into the source code Java for “backing beans” work To define special behavior for buttons, for example Expression Language (EL) to define values for XML element attributes: #{bindings.DepartmentId.inputValue}
17	Sample ADF Faces Development
18	Agenda Quiz questions ADF Business Components ADF Faces RC and ADF Model ADF Controller How one shop integrated all of this
19	ADF Controller Supplement to standard JSF Controller functionality Declares which page to display next Can be based on a condition Treats part of a page in the same way as a full page in normal JSF work Only part of a page is rendered, the rest stays put Speeds up page processing Allows reuse of page parts Allows logic to be added to the flow For example, conditional display of a page
20	ADF Controller: What You Need to Know Standard development motions for editing the flow diagram adf-config.xml or individual flow files For example, dept-flow.xml How to construct page based on “fragments” Reusable parts of a page Lightweight Java for manipulating the standard flow
21	Sample ADF Controller Development
22	Agenda Quiz questions ADF Business Components ADF Faces RC and ADF Model ADF Controller How one shop integrated all of this
23	The Legacy Application The organization New York State agency: Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) The application Federally required reporting system for all patient admissions and discharges into substance abuse treatment programs Statewide application involving 1,200 government, private and nonprofit programs Approximately 400,000 transactions per year – primarily entered online Character-mode Forms 6i run in a telnet client session
24	Challenges – Staff Staff consisted of Oracle Forms and PL/SQL developers Unaware of Java EE coding styles Training on new tools and languages early in project On site “mentors” Java architect to answer questions and to do the “hard stuff” “Recipes” for specific tasks
25	Challenges – Technology Settling on Fusion technologies (9i and 10g versions, actually) as the technology stack Primarily declarative programming, little Java “The Oracle Path” – Oracle was/is using them ADF in JDev, UIX, ADF Faces, ADF BC, Struts, JSF Rewriting all application code Moving Forms business rules logic to the database Rewriting character mode reports in Oracle Reports Integrating web application security
26	Successes - Staff Somewhat apprehensive staff was productive New is always scary but in a fun way Mentoring strategy empowered staff for future work Pre-project training addressed project requirements Database code orientation side effect: Leverage known skills Mentoring included “recipes” for frequently-performed tasks Create a form Create a report A resident Java architect is a must
27	Successes – Technology Technology choices proved solid Fusion technologies and database-centric code ADF Business Components presented no major surprises JDBC layer worked Published techniques for application context and user connections worked View and Controller technologies did their job Used Browser Look and Feel Upgrades to new versions (post 9i) have been a real challenge Technology shift from UIX to JSP to JSF
28	Lessons Learned – Staff Plan for staff skills transition time Specific training followed up with project work helps Big Bang training (all features at one) does not work well Feed in new techniques a little at a time Particularly important: Scale initial tasks so they can be successful A sense of accomplishment is a key learning technique
29	Lessons Learned – Technology Full application rewrites cannot “leave everything the same” Budget for some redesign time Database structures can and should change Design around native features Frameworks work best when you leverage their strengths Avoid overriding framework classes if at all possible Stick with default page flow Upgrades will be easier The simpler the better
30	Summary You can be quite productive with Fusion technologies using ADF declarative and visual programming You need to know basic ADF mechanics How its frameworks work The developer experience Thinking in an ADF way You need to know a bit about Java and some other languages And rely on a Java architect You need to keep learning
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