How to start learning JAVA for use with Oracle RDBMS?

Question

Hi!

I am looking for some advice on what should I concentrate my efforts to get the needed skills to become a Java developer for Oracle applications. I'm bit confused as there are lot of technologies in the Java world. Where should I start? What to avoid? Is JDeveloper a good IDE for a beginner?

Answer 1

You should be able to do everything related to Oracle using JDBC, so make sure you bone up on that API. Other than that, it depends on the type of application. Standalone apps may use Swing (the Java UI toolkit) or in the future JavaFX, which is supposed to make Swing obsolete and may do so in a few years. Web/enterprisey apps will make use of Java Enterprise Edition, so take a look at the servlet API, and if the app uses Enterprise JavaBeans, look at the Java Persistence API, which you would probably be using instead of JDBC.

I haven't used JDeveloper, but I haven't found anything wrong with the free IDEs like Eclipse or Netbeans, and my personal favorite is JetBrains's IntelliJ IDEA.

Answer 2

There's really nothing specific you need to learn to be an oracle devloper per se. Obviously you need to learn oracle sql syntax, and all the standard rdbms theory that goes along with database programming in general. The Java libs for database support are pretty easy to pick up and run with. I'm sure you can find a tutorial on the web by a quick google search.

As for IDE I'd recommend Eclipse. It's a bit cumbersome at times, but the number of plug-ins available is staggering, and it has great refactoring and code completion support.

Answer 3

You're question is a little bit too vague in order to give a proper answer...

If you plan to query the Oracle Database from an External Java Program (Either within a Swing Application or an Application Server) then you need to learn 2 core APIs:

• JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)

• JPA (Java Persistence API)

JDBC is the core API that allows a Java Program to interact with any RDBMS so you should at least know how it works so whenever you have to dig into low-level code, you will actually know what's happening.

JPA is the latest Java API for Persistence which basically allows one to map Plain Old Java Object (AKA PoJo) to RDBMS Table Structures. There are multiple known implementation available but I would recommend Hibernate or TopLink as good starting points.

After that, you can start to dig into other known frameworks like the Spring Framework for some other RDBMS related APIs.

Answer 4

You can use JDeveloper and try to find some tutorials for it (I actually had some from my university). It integrates well with rest of Oracle stack (db and application server). Down site is that although you can download some developers editions to run for personal usage, running Oracle db + Oracle application server + JDeveloper on a machine that has less then 4GB of ram and one core is not really peasant experience.

Answer 5

Expert Oracle JDBC Programming is a book aimed directly at developers who want to use Java with Oracle. Before you make even that small monetary investment though, you might want to check out the JDBC tutorial published by Sun.

Answer 6

To become an Oracle Developer there is a bit more to learn than jdbc. You should take a look at the Oracle web site. It is kind of slow and not very intuitive but has a lot of good information. There are OUGs that have good info as well.

If you just want to access Oracle via JAVA then you should use a framework such as Spring. Takes away the pain of jdbc. Lets you write sql and map it to objects.

If you don't know PL/SQL it might be good to learn what it is.

My two cents from working with Oracle for the past 7 yrs.

Answer 7

Your question is very simple so I have listed a few simple steps to start developing a Java application using Oracle technologies.

1. Install Oracle XE Database.
2. Install [JDeveloper]. Choose the install with Weblogic if you are developing a J2EE application.
3. Build and run a jdbc application using the [sample code] or use the wizard in JDeveloper.
4. Install SQL Developer for writing stored procedures.

Steps 3. and 4. are optional. You now have everything you need to build either a proof of concept or an enterprise grade database application, using simple wizards and without re-inventing the wheel.

You mentioned developing an Oracle Application. It's best to leave the development of Oracle's packaged Application to Oracle itself but if you want to integrate your custom java application with Oracle's packaged application then use Oracle's SOA Suite.

Cheers

KB