I’m doing a webinar next week for ODTUG about Shaping Your APEX Development Process on Tuesday February 18th at 12:00 PM EST. It’s the first time for me to talk in front of a virtual audience, so it will be kinda special for me. Click here to register for the webinar. I hope to see you there! Well, see is probably not the right word, but you know what I mean. :]

Here’s the abstract of what I’ll be talking about:

Software development with Oracle Application Express is by no means affiliated with enterprise web development. Oracle itself positions APEX as a so-called rapid application development tool, but recommends other products as soon as projects get larger and more complex. I honestly believe, however, that APEX has the potential to cope with these large-scale projects. But – there’s always a but – you need more than just plain APEX.

That’s where this webinar comes into play. We have managed to incorporate a set of powerful tools in our day-to-day development process. These tools in combination with APEX allow teams to build high-quality database applications in a professional way. Here’s a list of the tools we’ll highlight:

  • Subversion or Git: Every code base needs source control. APEX development is no exception.
  • Maven: A build automation tool used primarily for Java projects. We made it work for our purposes:
      • Manage database changes (SQL, PL/SQL and data)
      • Schema compilation and invalid object notification
      • Check for coding standards violations
      • Automated unit testing
      • Technical documentation generation
      • APEX application and workspace files import
  • Liquibase: Manage database changes (SQL, PL/SQL and data).
  • utPLSQL: Unit testing framework for PL/SQL.
  • NaturalDocs: Generate technical documentation à la Javadoc.
  • Jenkins: Continuous integration tool.

Build automation is the keyword here. It takes no more than a single click on a button to deploy your changes from environment A to environment B. During this demo-driven webinar, I’ll explain how one can take advantage of the above tools and how they work together. No prerequisite knowledge is required.