The next version of Oracle’s Jdeveloper will feature the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF), which underpins a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWG) environment for development of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based applications.

ADF follows Oracle’s earlier Business Objects for Java (BC4J) and User Interface XML (UIX). BC4J is a framework that enabled developers to build, customize and re-use business logic without re-programming while UIX is a set of Java and XML technologies for managing events and the state of a web application’s flow.

Ted Farrell Oracle’s architect and director of strategy for application development tools, said Oracle is continuing the frameworks theme in an attempt appeal to a greater number of developers, by taking the complexity out of programming.

Of an estimated developer population of 9 million just 1.5 are believed to be Java programmers. Of that there are very few who know the technology of J2EE, Farrell said.

The WYSIWG interface will enable developers to build a web page around JavaServer Pages (JSPs) using graphical controls, connect pages using drag-and-drop while the underlying elements are automatically bound together.

Right now there’s a lot of synchronization and caching of code. These are the things ADF can provide, he said. Farrell added that elements of BC4J would be extended into presentation layer, for data management.

Oracle’s focus on improving the developer experience, automating construction using behind-the-scenes frameworks, is gaining favor among vendors offering J2EE tools. Companies like BEA Systems Inc arguably galvanized the market with WebLogic Workshop, which takes a framework-based approach to programming J2EE web services.

Workshop uses BEA’s JWS files so non-technical programmers can assemble applications using drag-and-drop interfaces, eliminating need for API-level knowledge of J2EE.

BEA took a page from book of Microsoft Corp’s Visual Basic, and Sun Microsystems Inc now appears top be taking the same route. One senior executive said recently Sun is working on tools that the historic visual developers will find very attractive.

Farrell said the industry has realized J2EE needs to become a mature development environment, not just a mature runtime platform. The industry is aware [J2EE] is a runtime centric technology. We are at the point where the tools are starting to catch-up, he said.

A preview release of Oracle’s next JDeveloper is due at Sun Microsystems Inc’s JavaOne conference this June, in San Francisco, California.

Source: Computerwire