Oracle APEX on Facebook

Today, an email was sent out to everyone who subscribes to the Oracle Database Insider newsletter. In this email were 3 links:

• Oracle APEX on Facebook
• Oracle SQL Developer on Facebook
• Oracle SQL Developer Twitter

This announcement isn't going to move mountains, but the important thing to note is that Oracle APEX on Facebook is created and run by Oracle Product Marketing. For all those people who ask "where's the marketing for APEX from Oracle?", here's just the start of it. And with more to come.

You shouldn't use Oracle Application Express because...

I always revel at the myriad of untruths and misinformation given about Oracle Application Express and the reasons why you shouldn't use it. Some of the most common and my favorites are:

• It can't scale. Most people know this is my favorite to refute.
  
  
• It's only suitable for Access and Excel replacement.
  
  
• With the Sun acquisition, it's going to be all Java all the time. And APEX is not Java. (An Oracle partner told me this, not aware that I work for Oracle).
  
  
• It's written in SQL and PL/SQL. It can't really be all that extensible. It's in SQL, after all. (This gem came to me from Oracle's own Siebel CRM team).

Well, I have a new one to add to the list. At the recent ODTUG Kscope conference in Long Beach, CA, I met with two partners who have been building an elegant application for use by the United Nations (yes, those United Nations). In their presentation, one of the attendees raised the issue of Oracle's commitment to APEX. He raised the point of how most Oracle products are labeled as 11 release whereas APEX has its own release numbers. For him this must be a sure sign of long term non-commitment and preference to ADF.

Let me state a few things:

1. The difference in APEX version number has zero (as in nil) bearing on any direct or indirect commitment by Oracle for APEX
   
   
2. We have a major revision of Oracle Application Express at least once a year. The database does not release that frequently. It's beneficial to not have the same version number, otherwise, we'd have to sit and cool our heels between 11gR1 and 11gR2, or 11gR2 and Database 12.
   
   
3. The Oracle Database ships with Oracle Application Express, and has done so since Database 10gR1 - all the way through 10gR2, 11gR1, 11gR2 and Database 12.
   
   
4. With respect to the forthcoming Database Express Edition (XE), to reduce the size of the download and size of on-disk distribution, the early decision was to not include Oracle Application Express. But the Senior VP of Server Technologies responsible for all of Oracle Database asked for APEX to be put back in and included with XE.

Oracle Application Express was first started in 1999. Oracle HTML DB and Oracle Application Express have been in constant development since the first supported production release in 2004. The versions and year of release are:

HTML DB 1.5	2004
HTML DB 1.6	2005
HTML DB 2.0	2005
Application Express 2.1	2006
Application Express 2.2	2006
Application Express 3.0	2007
Application Express 3.1	2008
Application Express 3.2	2009
Application Express 4.0	2010
Application Express 4.1	2011*

I think there's only one thing to safely conclude about this person who doubted Oracle's commitment to APEX solely because of the difference in version numbers....he has no idea what he's talking about.