Introducing the Official LinkedIn APEX Group

Once upon a time I had a laugh on facebook when someone posted an image showing multiple groups dedicated to stopping duplicate groups, oh the irony.

Recently I've been trying to share my blog posts via LinkedIn but I'm always unsure which of the seven APEX groups I'm a member of I should post to.

It turns out only the SIG groups are owned by heavyweights, namely Product Manager David Peake and evangalist Dimitri Gielis.

I asked the question twitter ...

I appear to be a member of 6-7 linkedin groups related to #orclapex anyone have a preference? anyone use them?
— Scott Wesley (@swesley_perth) February 23, 2015

... and once again Joel Kallman comes through and creates the 'official' uber group for APEX developers.

https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8263065

Joel includes this in describing the purpose

People should freely promote anything they wish here - jobs, trainings, new products, new blog posts, whatever you wish. But it has to be related to Oracle Application Express or the community. If not, it will be deleted

I've been nominated as a moderator, something I've never done before but we'll see how it goes. However if you need help with APEX programming issues, please utilise the OTN APEX forum. Stackoverflow is also handy for jQuery/CSS questions, though I'd still recommend OTN first to keep question in context.

The group is still in it's infancy, but the plan is to make it a quality feed for APEX developers, perhaps those who aren't twitter users. Though if not, perhaps you should.

If you're an APEX developer looking for another source of information, feel free to join and contribute.

As Joel likes to say... #letswreckthistogether!

Insync 2010 - I wasn't there.

Hello everyone

I'm starting to see a bit of feedback from the Insync Conference 2010 in Melbourne Australia.

It seems Down Under we're still working on creating the conference vibe, but I'm impressed to find a dedicated (yet thin) blog for the Melbourne leg. Here I found interviews with Connor McDonald & Tom Kyte.

http://insync-conference.com.au/blog/?p=211

I'll note that video of Connor confirms that I'm not the only one that seems to associate alcohol consumption with Oracle. I noted in the latest AUSOUG Foresight Magazine, Marc Lancaster gave a warm review of my appearance at a Brisbane branch meeting - apparently I commented how wonderful the beer & pizza concept is, or something along those lines!

Congratulations to Jeff Kemp, who took out Steven's live PL/SQL Challenge.
http://feuerthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/08/plsql-challenge-live-event-in-melbourne.html
I was looking forward to the live challenge this Friday when Steven comes to Perth, but alas - I have a previous date with our wonderful coastal isle - Rottnest.

Next time, Kempy... next time ;-)

I do look forward to catching up with friends this year at the Perth's leg of the conference series in November, perhaps I'll see you there.

All Programmers Should Read Delightfully Creative Information

Now if you think that post title was a little strange, it's because it's a mnemonic.

Now they haven't really worked for me in the past - just like the poem to remember how many days in each month - I found it easier to remember the raw facts than the poem itself. Besides, the knuckle trick was easier.

Anyhow, this is an Oracle related blog, and I wanted to share an idea to remember the Apex URL syntax of:
f?p=App:Page:Session:Request:Debug:ClearCache:itemNames:itemValues:PrinterFriendly

Most of the time I remember the order fairly well off the top of my head, though sometimes I need to double check; and sometimes within the mix of a bunch of colons it's hard to work out what is what. Perhaps if you're reading a sentence in your head as you move the cursor between colons...
f?p=MY_APP:HOME::::::

So maybe what I (and others) need is a mnemonic to help us remember the order:

All	Application
Programmers	Page
Should	Session
Read	Request
Delightfully	Debug
Creative	Cache
Information	Items
	Values
	Printer Friendly

I didn't include the last two, since you don't often need to consider the printer friendly attribute and once you have items, you should know values follow. Besides, I tried not to make it too complicated or difficult to remember!

What do you think? Any other suggestions? This really was the first thing that rattled off my head after a productive day of Apexing.

Yup, I also felt like inventing a new verb.

Oracle Sues Google

No, that is not a pun.

Time has been weighed in the favour of personal life recently, but one can't help notice some big news in the local industry.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/oracle-sues-google-for-java-patent-copyright-infringement/38013

That particular link Scribd the official document, which relates to Google Andoid.

Oracle states "one of the most important technologies Oracle acquired with Sun was the Java platform." Past that slowly dissolved into lawyer speak that I often wonder how our ancient authors of writing could bare to comprehend.

I did notice at the end of page nine a "prayer for relief". Interesting the terminology from all directions that become common-speak. From "googling my employee" to "fall from grace" - sayings and idioms of always been a distant world to me.

Courtesy of Mr Spendolini.

**

On a lighter note, I've been informed I'm doing fairly well this month in Steven (& Finn's) PL/SQL Challenge. I think today's quiz might create some discussion on Steven's associated blog. Hopefully I can keep up my recent form and snare a prize ;-)

Interesting topics while I was gone

Not surprisingly, the world still ticks - even when I'm on holidays.

I've finally caught up with my RSS feeds - the work related ones anyway - and I've compiled a brief list of those that caught my eye in particular. When trying to catch up on three weeks of feeds, the best reads tend to stand out.

Comparing Oracle & MySQL - this may become more relevant as time goes on, and will certainly be useful every time my MySQL friend asks me Oracle questions.
Oracle XE 11g - while I'm not waiting for it, that would be a useful release, particularly for those who want to tinker and learn from home.
asktom.oracle.com/tkyte - I spotted the loss not long after Tom jumped domains, so it's good to see all his reference scripts made available again.
Multibyte characters - I encountered this issue recently, but not because I was coding for another language. I was importing data files that contained characters that I wasn't expecting, so I had to consider width as Alex described even though I was substringing a particular length.
Unwrapping PL/SQL - It's amazing how many people are curious about this.
Apex & Web 2.0 - There are some great demo applications linked through here.

And as I write this my replacement laptop power adapter arrived - let's hope it works. No more excuses for me!

More Aces than a deck of cards

... says the latest bulletin regarding the 2009 AUSOUG Conference.

Oracle Aces presenting this year include:
Connor McDonald - whom I've had the pleasure of working with in the past.
Lucas Jellema - will also be conducting some extra seminars while in Melbourne. 
Peter Koletzke - if you're into JDeveloper, he's your man. That link is a gold mine for middle-ware papers.
Tim Hall - Best speaker from last years conference series.
Penny Cookson - My effervescent yet humble foreman. Her presentations always get a giggle.

And of course I'll be there presenting my wares. Hope to see you, too!

Upcoming Presentation

G'day All,

I'll be presenting in Melbourne soon - I'll be in town for a few days and hopefully making best use of my time!

My topic will be Conditional Compilation - something touched on briefly during Steven Feuerstein's recent visit.

Where: VicUrban, Level 12, 700 Collins Street Docklands, 3008 (Beside Southern Cross Station)
When: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 05:15pm - 06:15pm
RSVP: RSVP to president.vic@ausoug.org.au to advise your attendance by close of business on 07-SEP-2009.

If you're from Melbourne, have a interest in PL/SQL, I'd enjoy your company.

2009 AUSOUG Conference - Call for Papers

Hello Oracle Community,

The call for papers has been re-iterated for this year's AUSOUG 20:20 Foresight National Conference Series.

Always a good opportunity for networking, learning and a few fun & games, this year's conference series is ready for abstract submissions from young & old.

If you've never written a presentation before, I highly recommend it. If you have, then get cracking on the next one! I've (hopefully) got two great topics up my sleeve this year and I look forward to the experience.

The 2009 dates are:

• Perth from 10-11 November at the Burswood Convention Centre
• Melbourne from 16-17 November at the Sebel Albert Park Hotel

Visit www.ausoug.org.au/2020 for all the latest information.

Hope to see you in Perth and/or Melbourne!

Steven Feuerstein Perth Review - Session 2 - Writing Maintainable Code

Steven's second session remained light on for technical details, which was great for a Friday morning. He dealt with a topic that can be applied to any language and one that every developer faces on a day to day basis - the balancing act between deadlines and writing maintainable code.

As I write this I remember the old adage from Microsoft Secrets, and probably numerous software engineering books - every step a bug makes towards production, the exponentially more expensive it will be to fix.

Steven mentioned a few basic mantras and elaborated on each. I think this was well received by the audience and it always makes a difference to hear the argument from authority.
Without elaborating too much, some I managed to note down include:

• Construct and enforce coding standards - even to the extent of when to utilise SQL. Steven pointed us to a set of standards he follows and has put out for public comment.
• Personally, I'm in favour of using hungarian notation, including the datatype in the prefix of a variable, eg: ld_dob DATE;
• - Utilise your development tool's template facilities. Whether it be Toad, SQL Developer, Textpad... they have have facilities to generate say a package with all the stubs, exception handlers, comment headers etc you need to avoid the White Canvas of Death, as he calls a blank .sql file. This helps with the enforcement of coding standards.
• Encapsulate "stuff" to make it more readable
• define a package for constants, and don't hardcode ANY value. If there is a slim chance in 100 years it could change, it should be defined somewhere. This also goes for formulas such as a full name evaluation from numerous fields.
• Use pragma exceptions, so we see pkg_exceptions.e_collection_empty instead of -22166
• Use PL/SQL APIs to each table (elaborated later in this post)
• If you ever say Never or Always, it's a bug. Tom Kyte always says ;-)
• Boolean functions read best when they return a boolean expression such as
  RETURN (this='TEST');
as opposed to
  

  if this = 'TEST' then
  return true;
  else
  return false;
  end if;

• Functions in general should work like a funnel. This way you can avoid ORA-06503 - Function returned without a value. PL/SQL warnings can help with this. Steven's words with this comment obviously help describe what a funnel looking function looks like!
• Always (is this a bug?) return a subtype - never a specific datatype, ie: VARCHAR2(100)
• Visit Refactoring.com
• Use instrumentation/assertions. (Hint - I'll be elaborating on this later in the year)
• And the fastest way to get the job done is to take your time. Don't rush. Mistakes are made when people rush, and experts from any industry will tell you that if you take your time, the job will get done quicker with fewer mistakes. The best analogy I heard on this was (I think) from a lecturer at uni -
  "Two carpenters were asked to make the same cabinet. The first carpenter, and old man, spent the first 2 hours thinking - studying the plans, laying out his tools.
  The second carpenter, an apprentice, (put his cowboy hat on) and got cracking straight away - sawing wood, drilling holes, occasionally swearing and looking for his hammer. He looked over at the old man thinking (chuckling), crikey, I'm halfway through this cabinet already and he's still thinking about the job!
  The old man then starts making the cabinet. All the relevant bits of timber were within arms reach as he built the cabinet, every tool never more than a step away. Actual construction of his cabinet took 30 minutes. Meanwhile, four hours in, the apprentice is still putting 'finishing touches' on his cabinet (working out how to put the doors on straight).
  The old man beamed at his work. Every join flush, every screw lined up. When the apprentice finally finished his, he figured he'd do better next time. Practice makes perfect."
  

As for coding practices, I had a flick through the book Steven was giving away on the day, and it looks well worth the read. Perhaps a book like that should be a standard text in a university curriculum?

Now to my first major criticism for the day. The concept of PL/SQL APIs to every table. I noticed Tim Hall also describes this sort of utopian development environment where all DML (including SELECT) for a table is done via PL/SQL APIs and any results returned via associative arrays. As I understand it, utopia is like the speed of light, or absolute zero - theoretically you can never reach it. And I think the reason in this particular case is the balance required between a tuned application and an abstracted/encapsulated one. To his credit, Steven himself said his focus is on PL/SQL performance and integrity, he's never been a SQL tuning fanatic.

Steven also mentioned Tom Kyte's mantra of "if it can be done solely in SQL, then do it in SQL". If there is no need to introduce PL/SQL for a solution, then don't.
E-Business Suite has been utilising table APIs for years, and quite successfully. It creates a well placed barrier and internalises all the business logic, turning say the insertion of a new HR employee into a procedure call whose black box touches a dozen tables to manage the setup. It also allows customisations to be neater and separate from the main install.

Software development theory aside, Steven did demonstrate a very nifty facility in his Toad suite to automatically generate all the typical APIs that may be required for a set of tables. Very tidy indeed.

There are many ideals in this session that need to be reiterated to every developer, and every newbie (I feel I should stipulate I think this is not a derogatory term, we should all remember we were all there once) should also cover it thoroughly. 4/5 for this session. Points lost because I think Hungarian notation should be in the major standard ;-), and further elaboration should be made on the utopian ideal of PL/SQL APIs - although time is always pressing for such a theological debate.

Steven Feuerstein Perth Review - Session 1 - Code Therapy for Software Developers

Based on conversations I've had with various people since Friday's session, it seems his day seminar was a success. There was a touch over 100 people in the auditorium with a fairly wide distribution of positions, skills & industry. Many thanks for AUSOUG and the members responsible for bringing Steven to our remote city (after the Sydney/Melbourne legs) - some of them only had minimal to see Steven present; and thank you Branka for that wonderful food! (I can be easy to please) It's just a shame it was a rainy weekend in Perth.

I'd like to take the opportunity to do a small review on each of the four sessions, although most of my comments will probably tie together scatterings of comments throughout the day.

I think his four topics were well selected. While obviously separate presentations in their own right, they were cohesive enough that you could see strong relationships between them throughout the day.

1. Coding Therapy for Software Developers
2. Writing Maintainable Code
3. High Performance PL/SQL
4. Automated Testing Options for PL/SQL

Even before Chris Muir introduced him, he took the time to demonstrate two old yet simple games that he believes a good developer should be comfortable with, at the same time obtaining good audience participation.
Mastermind he likened to the debugging mind, where given various states of being, how that suits with the expected solution. It was a very good analogy and reminded me how I used to enjoy that game.
The other was The Set Game, something I stumbled across a few years ago, possibly via a comment on his website. It reflected a consistent tenet of his that development is closely tied with pattern matching.

His first session, entitled Coding Therapy for Software Developers, I personally found to be the most enjoyable session of the day. I think we need to see more of this style of presentation at these events - unfortunately they seem to fit better with the evangalist/guru types with years of experience. Not only was it a sidestep away from the usual technical presentation, it helped remind us why we enjoy our jobs and how we can modify/affirm our behaviours and appreciate our career choice.

He recommended a number of books during the presentation, and I noticed quite a few people note them down. Steven did give a good impression of enthusiasm for these books, and I will certainly be on the lookout for them. For those who missed them:

Christopher Alexander - Pattern Language - Timeless Way of Building - Steven mentioned that day to day problems already have (good) solutions and if we can harness the concepts of pattern matching we can utilise the better, efficient solutions more frequently. One of the development perspectives here being templates and modularisation/encapsulation.

Jeff Hawkins - On Intelligence - For many years engineers have been trying to build intelligent machines, and apparently this book explores the topic well.

Daniel Gilbert - Stumbling on Happiness - An interesting look at how our minds work, and why we delude ourselves in thinking we know what we all want to make us happy.

Steve McConnell - Code Complete - A more technical book mentioned later in the day discussing best practices in the art and science of creating software. I remember thoroughly enjoying the art vs science debate of development at university, I'm sure this will be a good read.

In fact listening to his comments that morning, I have a sneaking suspicion he's a fellow evolutionist - and I would quite happily have recommended a wonderful book I'm reading at the moment.

One of my hand written notes referred to a conversation about why birds don't look sick until they are near death. A pattern of evolution and adaptation - but I can't remember how it related to software development! Oops.

He certainly mentioned to avoid caffeine, eluding to memory - based on my understanding anything learnt while under the influence of caffeine means we have a better chance of remembering it only when we have the same amount of caffeine in our system. Not really a state of being that we should desire 24-7.

Steven is a charismatic speaker, and I'm sure his fairly generic American/Chicago accent has helped his success in the presentation theatre. I recall a conversation with Lynn Munsinger on this concept.

So for me, 5/5 for the first session. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the other three. I'd certainly be happy to see the same session again, and more like it.

Global/Local Oracle Community Networking

Recently while doing a little web surfing & blog investigating, I signed up to Oracle Mix and Oracle Community (my profile and profile).

It's sometimes difficult to get familiar with a new forum/website, and at the moment it seems a little overwhelming. However the idea for the two sites suggest good potential - I was wondering if anyone out there could provide thoughts on their experiences?

1. Do you find it useful?
2. Have you used it as an effective tool?
3. What positives/negatives have you found?
4. Do you have a preference?
5. Are you happy to stick with an RSS blog feed?

g_input := 'welcome';