Migrating Oracle Forms to ASP.NET

[Anup Daware]

Hi All,

I am working on Migration of Oracle Forms to ASP.NET, I am searching
for approaches to make this happen, I have read about 'Forms2Net' tool
which claims easy migration. But I want to know if it really works
well, advice from somebody who has used Forms2Net or some other
approach will be really useful. I would like to know following point
on this:
1. Approaches for Migration of Oracle Forms to ASP.NET
2. Is Forms2Net really useful? Any shortcomings of Forms2Net?
3. What are the pitfalls or issues to watch out for while migrating?
4. Any aspects of the Oracle forms application that are better re-
implemented than the migration approach?

Waiting for your valuable responses.
Thanks in Advance,
Anup

[Michael O]

I am very experienced with Oracle Forms. There is NO meaningful tool
that can help you convert Oracle Forms to ASP.NET. If anyone tells
you otherwise, investigate the source of their income and I assure you
they are a registered Snake Oil Salesman. You must rewrite your
Oracle Forms application from scratch in whatever new platform you are
using. You may disagree with me, but you would be wrong. You have
been warned.

Michael O
http://blog.crisatunity.com

[Andrew Badera]

Look at it as a refactoring opportunity.

--ab

--
--Andy Badera
http://andrew.badera.us/
and...@badera.us
(518) 641-1280

[Anup Daware]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your straight forward feedback, we are certainly thinking
of rewriting the ASP.NET application after this. I just wanted to
know, Why do you think there cannot be some automated way for
converting the Oracle Forms to any other platform/framework? Are there
any particular architecture level concerns you are pointing at?

Thanks,
Anup

On Jan 14, 8:25 pm, Michael O <cleveridea....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am very experienced with Oracle Forms. There is NO meaningful tool
> that can help you convert Oracle Forms to ASP.NET. If anyone tells
> you otherwise, investigate the source of their income and I assure you
> they are a registered Snake Oil Salesman. You must rewrite your
> Oracle Forms application from scratch in whatever new platform you are
> using. You may disagree with me, but you would be wrong. You have
> been warned.
>

> Michael Ohttp://blog.crisatunity.com

[Michael O]

Oracle Forms is essentially a 4GL (highly stylized and abstract)
platform that has its applications designed from the database
structure down. ASP.NET is essentially a 3GL that uses class
structures for its design base. ASP.NET does have slick development
interfaces with Visual Studio and a rich GUI API that appears 4GL, but
it isn't.

Although Oracle PL/SQL is the greatest server-side stored procedure
language ever implemented, Oracle Forms attempts to use an older
version of it in a funky client-side engine, which will confuse the
hell out of you if you don't understand it incredibly well.

And last, but not least, Oracle Forms is at its core stateful - even
by browser - through a java applet. ASP.NET is not stateful. This
alone should give you an idea of how much coding difference is
involved.

If you decide you must migrate, I'll quote you US$100/hour plus time
and materials to do the bulk of the the job. It is not a task for the
feint of heart. Contact me through my blog if you want to get
involved on a project together.

Michael O
http://blog.crisatunity.com

P.S. I've seen some of the automated Oracle Forms-to-JSP conversion
frameworks out there and it is conceivable that if your Forms2Net
program is similar and you have a massive amount of Forms (hundreds?)
you could use such a tool to get you 60% of the way, but that is a
best case scenario from what I've seen with Forms-to-JSP. But if you
have dozens of forms, automation would be counterproductive. Good
luck. You are facing some of the most miserable work you've ever
done.

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