News

Oracle's New Dev Tools Rolled Out at JavaOne '07

• By John K. Waters
• May 8, 2007

This JDeveloper release comes with enhanced Java tools for developing rich Internet applications (RIAs). Coupled with Oracle ADF, it provides developers with the tooling and runtime infrastructure to build advanced enterprise Java apps and RIAs, said Steven Harris, VP of Oracle's Java Platform Group.

"We're very focused on developer productivity," Harris told ADT, "but productivity based on standards."

Open Source Play
In this case, the standard is JavaServer Faces (JSF), Harris explained. JSF 1.2 is a Web application framework designed to facilitate development of user interfaces for enterprise Java applications. Harris disclosed that Oracle plans to "strengthened its ties to the open-source community" by donating more than 80 AJAX-enabled JSF components to The Apache Foundation."

"Instead of focusing on JavaScript and DHTML and the idiosyncrasies of browsers, Oracle's approach is that [you should] build to a standard, one powerful model that developers focus on, and then you use the render kits to get the power of these RIAs."

Together, the new toolsets provide a platform for building service-oriented architectures based on the new Java EE 5 standards, Harris said.

The JDeveloper and Oracle ADF enhancements expected in this release include:

• Advanced tooling and visual development for all Java EE 5 standards and APIs
• Eighty-plus AJAX-enabled, JSF 1.2-based rich client components -- for the rapid creation of dynamic and richly interactive user interfaces for Web applications
• Enhanced ADF Render Kit -- including support for Flash rendering of data visualization components, such as charts, in addition to SVG and PNG output
• Enhanced Web services support -- including JAX-WS-compliant Web services generation from existing code or WSDL, Web services testing capabilities and improved WSDL editor for simplified Web services development
• New JavaScript editor and debugger.

Spring in the Air
The Oracle Development Kit for Spring, which is available now as a free download, is designed to simplify the development, deployment and management of Spring-based enterprise Java applications. Spring is a popular open-source application framework for the Java platform. It provides a simple approach to development that does away with numerous properties, files and helper classes that can litter the codebase. Harris claims that the SDK makes it possible to get up and running using Spring and Oracle Fusion Middleware in 15 minutes.

This release includes the integration codes that allow developers to use the Spring transaction model with Oracle's Java transaction API implementation in Oracle Fusion Middleware. 

Developers are increasingly using components of Oracle Fusion Middleware with Spring, said Ralf Dossmann, Oracle's senior product director of Fusion Middleware. "This is a natural evolution of the work that Oracle has been doing with the Interface21 (http://www.interface21.com/), and the Spring community," he added. Interface21 is the privately held company behind Spring. Oracle has collaborated with the company on Spring, service component architecture and OSGI. 

“It’s been exciting to see the Spring community flourish and our collaboration with Oracle has helped contribute to that,” said Rod Johnson, founder of the Spring Framework and CEO of Interface21, in a statement.  “As Interface21 and Oracle continue to drive innovations in the Java developer world, we look forward to providing more integration points that improve productivity and choice for developers. The Oracle Development Kit for Spring is another proof-point of our joint commitment to this goal.”

The SDK is available now on the Oracle Technology Network (http://www.otn.oracle.com).