Oracle JHeadstart - Frequently Asked Questions

General
0. What is the current status of Oracle JHeadstart?
1. What is Oracle JHeadstart?
2. What is included?
3. What is the price?
4. How can I obtain JHeadstart?
    4a. Is an evaluation copy available?
5. Where can I find more information?

Support
6. Will upgrades/patches be provided?
7. Is there a discussion forum?
8. Is it supported other than through the discussion forum?

Partners
9. Are partners allowed to buy Oracle JHeadstart?
10. Are partners allowed to resell Oracle JHeadstart?

Services and Training
11. Which Consulting Services around JHeadstart are available?
12. Which training courses are available around JHeadstart?

Technical Questions and Direction
13. What are the benefits of JHeadstart when I do not want to use the generators?
14. What is the status of the JHeadstart Designer Generator in JHeadstart 10.1.3?
15. What is the relationship between JHeadstart, ADF and ADF Faces?
17. What about JHeadstart and Oracle TopLink as a Model implementation?
18. What about JHeadstart and CDM RuleFrame?
19. What is the future direction of JHeadstart?
20. With which versions of JDeveloper is JHeadstart certified?
21. Can I continue developing a JHeadstart-generated application without JHeadstart?

General

0. What is the current status of Oracle JHeadstart?
Oracle JHeadstart 11.1.2 is now available. This release is available for license holders through the supplement option site. We have published an evaluation version. This evaluation version does not include Forms2ADF 11.1.2 (see question 4a). Please visit the this product center, the forum or the JHeadstart blog for more information.

For more information and a list of new features, see the JHeadstart Product Center.

1. What is Oracle JHeadstart?
For more information see the overview presentation and the fact sheet on the  JHeadstart Product Center.

2. What is included?
JHeadstart includes the following:

• JHeadstart New Service Definition Wizard, that generates initial meta data based on ADF Business Components.
• JHeadstart Application Generator (New Application Definition Wizard); generates JEE applications from JDeveloper based on ADF Business Components, JSF, and ADF Faces.
• JHeadstart Forms2ADF Generator; creates ADF Business Components and a JHeadstart Application Definition file based on Oracle Forms files.
• JHeadstart Runtime, which includes generic reusable components.
• JHeadstart Editor, Application Definition editor to declaratively specify the structure of the applications (the meta data).
• JHeadstart Developer's Guide, explaining how to drive the generators and how to customize the generated application.
• JHeadstart JavaDoc, describes the classes of the JHeadstart Runtime and the JHeadstart Application Generator, for use in your own application runtime, or in your custom generator templates, respectively.

For a complete list of features please refer to the Feature List on OTN.

3. What is the price of this bundle?
The price is set at USD 1,750 per named user (developer). The supplement option is a yearly fee of 15% of the license price. There is a minimum of 3 licenses all JDeveloper users should have a license. So to acquire this release you will have to acquire the supplement option. You can download the software from the supplement option portal. For more information on the supplement option see Question 6.

4. How can I obtain JHeadstart?
You can obtain Oracle JHeadstart through Oracle Consulting. Otherwise you may send an e-mail to idevcoe_nl@oracle.com. See also Question 3 and Question 6.

4a. Is an evaluation copy available?
Yes, an evaluation copy of JHeadstart 11.1.2 (it does not include Forms2ADF) is available from OTN. The evaluation versions may only be used for evaluation purposes and not for development of systems that are intended to be taken in production. The evaluation version is a fully functional version. There is one restriction, the JHeadstart Application Generator can only generate 10 view objects. Customers that want to start with moving from Forms to ADF are advised to start with an Forms2ADF Assessment.

5. Where can I find more information?
You can find more information about JHeadstart on OTN.

Support

6. Will upgrades/patches be provided?
Yes, for point releases, patches, small/minor upgrades, extra utilities etc. a supplement option is available. This supplement option has a yearly subscription fee of 15% of the price paid for the licenses. If you want to acquire the supplement option check the check box on the order form and give your my.oracle.com user name to your Oracle Consulting Representative or the Oracle Direct representative. You will then be given access to a portlet on my.oracle.com where you can download the new components. The 10.1.2, 10.1.3, 11.1.1.3 and 11.1.1.4 releases of JHeadstart are part of the supplement option.
New major releases are planned but not scheduled and can be given a new price.

7. Is there a discussion forum?
Yes there is a discussion forum on OTN. You can ask questions and the JHeadstart Team monitors the list, moderates the discussion and provides answers on a best effort basis. There is no guarantee that an answer will be given.

8. Is it supported other than through the discussion forum?
Support is arranged through Oracle Consulting on a time and material basis and not through Oracle Support Services. Some Oracle Countries have introduced Oracle Consulting Ticketbooks. These can be used to acquire support on JHeadstart as well.

Partners

9. Are partners allowed to buy Oracle JHeadstart?
Yes, partners are allowed to buy Oracle JHeadstart but only for use on internal development projects. If they want to use JHeadstart for the development of an application system that is build for a 3rd party, that 3rd party has to acquire licenses for the partner's resources.Independent Software Vendors that develop packaged applications for multiple customers and are member of the Oracle Partner Network are allowed to develop these packaged applications. In this case the end-customer does not need to pay for Oracle JHeadstart licenses and can freely use the JHeadstart runtime library. In the case that the end customer wants to customize or extend the packaged application using the Oracle JHeadstart design-time tools, customer needs to acquire Oracle JHeadstart licenses.

10. Are partners allowed to resell Oracle JHeadstart?
No.

Services and Training

11. Which consulting services are available?
The following services are available for customers that are interested in JDeveloper in combination with JHeadstart:

• J2EE Pilot (4 days)
  During a JEE pilot on Oracle JHeadstart consultant will develop a system in 4 days based on your requirements. During the pilot the consultants will transfer knowledge to your development staff. At the end the application will be demonstrated and an advice is given how your organization can proceed with JEE in your organization.
• ADF JHeadstart Workshop (see question 12)
• A 5 day workshop (either through Oracle University or on site) where an experienced Oracle Consultant trains your development staff using JHeadstart.
• JHeadstart Project Support - depends on projects
  You have decided to use JHeadstart but want to be sure it is applied correctly and have a seasoned Oracle Consultant on site to quickly solve issues that may arise. Oracle offers JHeadstart Project Support in this situation.
• JHeadstart Application Development (Oracle Consulting executes the projects)
  Of course Oracle Consulting can do the whole project for you using JHeadstart. This can either be on site or in one of Oracle's E-Business Studios.

The following services are available for customers that are interested in Forms to Java migration:

• Forms2ADF Assessment Service (4-10 days)
  In this Quick Scan Oracle Consulting investigates what it takes to migrate your forms application to JEE. It includes a pilot migration. We not only scan your applications but also your development team, development approach, technical architecture and impact on end users.
• Forms2ADF Migration (depends on scope)
  In this service Oracle Consulting actually migrates your applications to JEE. Duration of this service depends on the result of the Assessment Service.
• ADF JHeadstart Workshop (see question 12)
• A 5 day workshop (either through Oracle University or on site) where an experienced Oracle Consultant trains your development staff using JHeadstart.

For more information about these services contact your Oracle Consulting Representative or send an e-mail to idevcoe_nl@oracle.com.

12. Which training courses are available?

The following training courses are available for 11g:

• Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g: Build Applications with ADF I - 5 days
  
• Oracle ADF Best Practices/JHeadstart workshop - 3 days (currently in development) - the course above is an absolute requirement.

The following training courses are available for 10g:

• OracleAS 10g R3: Oracle ADF for Forms/4GL Developers (4 days) covers the ADF technology choices that are recommended for JHeadstart, not JHeadstart itself. This class can be used as a preparation for the ADF JHeadstart Workshop (see Preparing for the Workshop).
• ADF JHeadstart Workshop (5 days): includes a best practices introduction to ADF and covers JHeadstart.

Technical Questions and Direction

13. What are the benefits of JHeadstart when I do not want to use the generators?
If you do not want to use the generators for some reason you can still benefit from JHeadstart. The JHeadstart runtime components provide you with best practice extensions to the ADF Framework.

14. What is status of JHeadstart Designer Generator?
The JHeadstart Designer Generator is replaced by the Forms2ADF Generator.

15. What is the relationship between JHeadstart, ADF and ADF Faces?

JHeadstart is fully based on ADF and ADF Faces. In other words, JHeadstart generates ADF applications. JHeadstart adds an extra level of productivity by generating applications instead of building page by page using drag-and-drop. Furthermore it implements a number of best practices that Oracle Consulting experienced in different projects world-wide. The complete ADF Design time facilities can be used in every application that is generated with JHeadstart.

16. Not applicable anymore

17. What about JHeadstart and TopLink as a Model implementation?
TopLink cannot be used as Model Implementation with the current JHeadstart 11.1.2 for ADF release.

18. What about JHeadstart and CDM RuleFrame?
JHeadstart generated applications fully support CDM RuleFrame. This means that CDM RuleFrame validates business logic and reports errors back to the JHeadstart application in a similar way as it does for an Oracle Forms application. Both the JHeadstart application and the Forms application share the same business logic that is located in CDM RuleFrame in the database. Of course the use of CDM RuleFrame is not a prerequisite for the use of JHeadstart. You also have the option to include your business logic in ADF Business Components.

19. What is the future direction of JHeadstart?
JHeadstart will align with future developments of ADF. In addition we plan to add new generation capabilities for more complex layout structures to further enhance developer productivity and investigate integration with BPEL to further support the implementation of Service Oriented Architectures, including generation of a webservices API layer based on the Application Definition metadata.

20. With which versions of JDeveloper is JHeadstart certified?
See the JHeadstart-JDeveloper Support Matrix.

21. Can I continue developing a JHeadstart-generated application without JHeadstart?
Yes, you can continue without using the JHeadstart design-time tools. The generated applications are ADF compliant and can be developed further with the normal ADF tools of JDeveloper. You do need the JHeadstart Runtime Library, but with JHeadstart you receive the complete Java source code of the JHeadstart Runtime Library so you can make any changes you want. In practice, customers prefer to keep generating their applications because whatever you want to have in your JSF files (pages and faces-configs), you can put in the generator templates of JHeadstart at the desired level (application / group / item).

Version History