PL/SQL-Editor

Hi Marcel,

Yes I agree with you to a certain level. But... I'd argue that the way the Formspider IDE works is actually really nice.

In reality, there isn't much interruption going on. You switch from one window to the other. Pretty much the same thing you would do in a tool that had a PL/SQL Editor. Actually, if you use dual monitors, the transition is arguably more seamless than the transition in Oracle Forms. You just move your head from one monitor to the other. :-)

A lot of developers customize their PL/SQL editors to work more efficiently. Each developer likes a PL/SQL editor for whatever reason and would rather stay with it than to move to a new one. So with Formspider, you get to continue using your favorite PL/SQL Editor whatever it may be. And we think this is actually quite valuable.

Even more important, building a great PL/SQL editor is a hard job in and of itself. We don't have the resources to build a great development framework and a PL/SQL editor at the same time. So, we just get along with the editor your are currently using. We don't give you an even better one but we at least don't force you to use a crappy editor, either.

One important point you make is about debugging. I think technically it should be possible to use the debugging features of your current PL/SQL editor with Formspider (for breakpoints etc...). We failed to set this up though. This however was couple of years ago. Maybe it is worth to try it again.

So, building a PL/SQL editor is not in our current roadmap. Once we finish the items in this roadmap though, it is conceivable that we decide to assign some resources to adding a PL/SQL editor to the IDE. It will depend on the feedback we receive from our customers at that point in time.

Hope this helps,
Yalim