Oracle APEX looked pretty sharp at the 2010 MAOP conference

Sometime ago I posted an entry called "Build me a database please". The theme of that posting was essentially that Data Geeks like yours truly really need to ensure that we no longer "just build databases", we need to build simple User Interfaces (UI's) on top of these databases so that the folks who are paying us for the hard work we do know what data they have.

For a few years now (more then I care to admit) I've wanted to take a thorough look at Oracle APEX (which used to be called HTMLDB). At yesterday's Mid-Atlantic Oracle User Group conference I had a chance to sit through a couple presentations on Oracle APEX and these guys made it look so easy to build a UI right on top of an existing Oracle database schema. One of the guys used to be the Oracle HTMLDB product manager so he's been doing this for 10 years or so (give or take) but the other fellow didn't seem to be a User Interface genius and sure enough in a few minutes he had a decent looking little application.

I really need to take a week or so to play with this, it might just be that PHP replacement I've been dreaming about for years now.

Until next time...Rich

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