Since 1977, the Oracle corporation has specialized in the production and marketing of computer components. This includes hardware systems as well as a number of software programs. Though the company focuses more on the development of databases and business management software such as ERPs (Enterprise resource planning) and SCMs (Supply chain management), it also dabbles in application development programs.

The logic that drives Oracle’s applications development software division is the need to make it easier for programmers and users to use Oracle products. As such software packages such as J Developer make strategic business sense as the user will have everything they need. That way they engender a type of brand loyalty since given the ability to create applications that can run on Oracle products, the end user will not feel the need to rely on other brand products to satisfy their needs.

J Developer is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that developers can use to create applications. The integrated features of this Oracle software can prop up the entire life development cycle of the application The main advantages of this IDE lie in the fact that its completely free of charge and offers development features in HTML, SQL, XML Java, JavaScript, PHP and BPEL. Oracles J Developer simplifies the whole process of application development by offering the developer a more declarative and visual approach to the whole process. This visual, declarative approach of the J Developer lets programmers visually alter code layout and properties by simply regenerating key code components.

There area a variety of benefits that application developer’s can enjoy by simply using J Developer. Firstly, this free Oracle software is compatible some of the more popular open-source tools and frameworks. It is slightly similar in design to other popular IDEs such as Visual studio and Netbeans. This simply means that the learning curve is simplified and programmers that are familiar with other IDEs will find it relatively easy to use J Developer. The close knit nature of the IDE also means it’s easy to integrate underlying database components; be it data or objects, into the application code. Thanks to the visual component of J Developer, making alterations to code is also simplified.

There are a number of platforms that Java application developers can opt to use when building applications, including eclipse, Netbeans and J Developer. Most developers however, would directly opt for J Developer. Aside from the above practical advantages, this Oracle software also offers the developer functional advantages along with simplicity. J Developer dual functionality also allows for the development of desktop apps along with Java based applications. Furthermore, it comes in several editions that give the developer choice in terms of what functionalities to install. After all it would be a waste of time (and more importantly space) to install features that are most likely never going to be used.