Best practices on delivering a project to clients

[Bibin Varghese]

Hello, I am new to JDeveloper and I am currently working with a vendor on an ADF project. As part of their code delivery they are planning to just share ear files. I would like to know the best practices that needs to be followed. I would prefer to have the project workspace versus just the ear file and converting it back to workspace using JDeveloper. The vendor is using an ADF framework which they have developed. I am of the view point if they are building a custom application for my company we need the full code set and not bits and pieces which would make my company company depend on the vendor for future enhancements. Please share your thoughts pros and cons.

[Sten Vesterli]

For the developer, there are no advantages to not having the complete workspace. You will generally not be able to unpack the EAR file and continue development, because the EAR will not contain source, and it is hard to work with source code that has been created by decompiling class files. 

If you do not get the workspaces and the complete build infrastructure (Maven or Ant scripts etc) you will not be able to maintain the application going forward. Your organization might have knowingly accepted their dependency on the vendor in return for a lower price, but if your management suffers from the misconception that you can maintain the application based on the EAR files, you need to enlighten them ;-)
 

Best regards

Sten Vesterli   

Oracle ACE Director

Your guide on the journey towards Oracle ADF mastery 

st...@vesterli.com

www.adfmastery.com

[Brian Huff]

Yeah, you can only make minor changes to EAR files... like editing the JSPX files, JavaScript, images, CSS, or other web resources. You cant (easily) modify the backing beans, or any of the data model layer. You need the full build environment that the developer created to make changed there.

Its possible to decompile the Java class files into source files, and re-assemble a build environment from scratch... but that's really a last resort for when you've lost the original source code. If its just sitting on somebody else's computer, you should ask for it.

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[Jeevan G Joseph]

Bibin,

Sten hit this right on the money. You need to make sure why they are not willing to provide source and if thats a known and accepted part of your company's deal with them.

In my experience if you are contracting a custom application to be built, you *own* the source code and responsibility of maintenance once the acceptance criteria you set as part of the contract has been met by the vendor.

This of course also depends on the licensing. If you are buying a license to use a prepackaged product ( with no customizations) then you are providing hardware/ environment and installing and using a product . If it's broken, your support contract and associated SLAs will dictate the service you get on issue resolution. This is like using say the Oracle database.

You can also license a product that requires customization (code + configuration), In these cases the customization is owned by you and once a vendor delivers the customization(code + configuration) , and you have approved it through a UAT process, you effectively start owning it. In most cases, the vendor will be kept around for further customizations and some level of defect resolution and support is also part of the contract. This is like say using Oracle E-business Suite or SAP.

Finally you can have a complete custom app built - using your technology of choice. Usually in this case, you own the development - meaning there is usually a team of business analysts from your side that guide the functional requirements, and there is also a project management office from your side that keep track of how the vendor is meeting milestones (usually payment is also contingent on meeting a set of milestones by a set of dates). In my experience, in this mode, your company also throws in technical resources, to ensure that the code being developed meets your organizational standards and  quality criteria. This also gives technical resources from your side visibility in to how the application hangs together so that they can support this application once the vendor's contract expires.

You also mention >> The vendor is using an ADF framework which they have developed

ADF is developed and licensed by Oracle. Vendors can however build specializations on top of it - like say functionality that makes common tasks or integration within common external systems. They may not want to disclose source for these - but they should be shipped as libraries your functional application depends on, packaged separately from the code you are commissioning. You should also understand your dependencies(including any OSS libraries the vendor may use) and deem them acceptable for your continued ownership.

I'm not an expert on licensing and contracts, but looks like the vendor is creating a situation where it would be difficult/expensive for you to take eventual ownership of an application that was explicitly built from the ground up for your organization. As Sten said, you should understand if/how your management expects you to continue owning this application.

HTH,

Jeevan

On Mar 8, 2016 10:30 AM, "Bibin Varghese" <bibin...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello, I am new to JDeveloper and I am currently working with a vendor on an ADF project. As part of their code delivery they are planning to just share ear files. I would like to know the best practices that needs to be followed. I would prefer to have the project workspace versus just the ear file and converting it back to workspace using JDeveloper. The vendor is using an ADF framework which they have developed. I am of the view point if they are building a custom application for my company we need the full code set and not bits and pieces which would make my company company depend on the vendor for future enhancements. Please share your thoughts pros and cons.