Converting Oracle Forms 10 to Java

Question

There are a number of commercial products available:

• Exodus
• Evo

Also Oracle Application Express (APEX) is releasing a Forms Converter in Oracle Application Express 3.2 (which is now in beta).

• Has anyone used any of these tools?
• How much of the process do they automate?
• What’s the quality of the converted code?
• Are they worth the cost?
• Any other guidelines or thoughts?

Answer 1

I've never been in a conversion project except for total rewrites, but:

The biggest determinant will be how much custom code/design you have in your forms. If all your forms were, say, generated from Oracle Designer, they'll mostly likely convert fairly well using automated tools like the Apex forms converter.

If, however, most of your forms are hand-crafted, with lots of custom triggers to implement particular interface behaviours, you'll find the conversion process to be just the start of a very big rewrite project.

The good thing about the Apex forms converter is that it gives you a head start, then it helps you manage the process of manually converting your custom code bit by bit.