JSF / ADF Faces For Dummies

1. What is Oracle ADF Faces? What do I use it for?
Oracle ADF Faces is an implementation of standard JavaServer Face (JSF) specification. JSF is a framework designed by SUN for creating a Visual Basic or Borland Delphi like rapid web application development tool.

Generally, you use ADF Faces to rapidly and easily (hopeful) create a J2EE based web application.

2. Why must I use JSF?

You don’t. There are tons of J2EE framework, like Struts, WebWorks, Tapstry, Spring, etc, all of these are to help you build a web application. JSF or ADF Faces is just one of them.

There are two general differences (or advantages) between JSF/ADF Faces and other frameworks.

1. JSF is a J2EE standard, which means it have more support from major software vendors like SUN, Oracle, BEA…. In this case it may have potentials to live longer than other frameworks.
2. JSF is trying to bring the web application development experience back to the good old days we enjoyed during the C/S era when we had the Visua Basic, Borland Delphi and PowerBuilder. I believe this is a right path at least for now.

3. Why must I use Oracle ADF Faces? What does a Database company have to do with JSF?

ADF Faces is Oracle’s implementation of JSF standard. There are other implementations out there, like MyFaces, ICEFaces and Sun’s reference implementation. ADF Faces is among the best JSF implemenations so far, it owns more 100+ JSF UI/non-UI components which programers can use to create their web app.

Actually Oracle is using the ADF Faces to build their next generation of ERP/CRM systems called Fusion Applications. So ADF Faces is more widely used than many other JSF components.

4. How do I learn ADF Faces? Do I need to know JSF first? Is it hard?

Basically, I suggest you learn the JSF before learn the ADF Faces. There are many JSF tutorials you can find using google. jsftutorials.net is good place to start with. There are also some good books about JSF, JavaServer Faces: The Complete Reference is a good one. Generally, JSF is a little complicated than Struts.

If you know JSF already, ADF Faces will be just a walk by the lake for you.
However, in articles on this site I’ll assume you have no experience with JSF.