How do Oracle Forms compare to Microsoft Access as a "front-end"?

I recently started a project where I was set to build an ADP based application in Access 2003. The font end GUI was going to be in Access while all the data resided in MS SQL Server. I say "was", because the powers that be have decided that Oracle Forms might be a better choice than Access and SQL Server. The place where I am doing this work is an Oracle shop where they use Oracle 10g. They also use Oracle Forms quite a bit internally.

As for me I am always up for learning anything new. I have always been a rath开发者_如何学运维er "eclectic" developer (I work with .NET WinForms, ASP.NET, Java, C#, Python, and Access) so I would not mind moving to Oracle Forms as long as it could do the same things as MS Access (hopefully even more as VBA is rather limited).

So my question is this. How does Oracle Forms (10g) compare to MS Access for developing a GUI application? Access uses VBA for it's language, what does Oracle Forms use? I know the Forms app is a Java applet. Does that means you can write Oracle Forms using Java?

How does Oracle Forms (10g) compare to MS Access for developing a GUI application?

If you're accessing an Oracle database, I'd prefer Forms. Even better, I'd go for Apex. But that's probably partly because I'm used to these environments. I hated trying to build anything more than the simplest UIs in Access.

Access uses VBA for it's language, what does Oracle Forms use?

PL/SQL

I know the Forms app is a Java applet. Does that means you can write Oracle Forms using Java?

You can incorporate Java beans if you need specific custom components, but normally you don't need to. All your business logic you would normally code in SQL or PL/SQL, either in the form or on the database.

If you were going with an Access ADP, why not go with an Access MDB with ODBC? This has been MS's recommended setup even for apps using SQL Server (except for reporting, where ADPs have some advantages) for about the last 5 years or so.

ADPs are on the way out, it seems, not having had any changes/fixes in the last two versions of Access (A2007/A2010). They always seemed to me to be rather half-baked, but then I was comparing them to a mature platform, their sibling MDBs.