Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Oracle Forms Developer, Oracle Designer, and Oracle Programmer, are used with much
less frequency today.
Oracle SQL Developer
Oracle SQL Developer is an IDE for any currently supported Oracle Database version
that you can download from the Oracle Technology Network at no charge and run on
your Windows, Linux, or Apple MAC OS X workstation. With SQL Developer, you can
create connections to Oracle Databases, browse database objects, create and modify
database objects, query and update data, export data and DDL, import data, process
commands, and run and create reports. The product's tools support the editing, de‐
bugging, and running of PL/SQL scripts and the DBA Console can be used to manage
the database. In addition, SQL Developer can be pointed at non-Oracle databases to
view their database objects and data, and it provides capabilities to migrate to an Oracle
Database.
The SQL Developer Data Modeler provides a graphical user tool for creating, browsing,
and editing database models. Data dictionaries can be imported from Oracle Databases,
IBM DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server. Data models can be imported from the Computer
Associates ERwin product and Oracle's previous generation design tool, Oracle
Designer.
Oracle Application Express
Oracle Application Express (APEX) is an in-Oracle Database rapid development tool
freely available for all current editions of the Oracle Database. The tool was designed to
create HTML-based applications through a wizard-based approach and has proven to
be fairly popular in the Oracle community. APEX has come with the Oracle Database
since version 10
g
R2 and is available as a download from the Oracle Technology Network
forum.
Developers using APEX access a browser-based declarative development framework
and are presented with wizards and property sheets for declaratively building and
maintaining applications. Key components include an application builder, SQL work‐
shop, team development environment, and administration and analytics interface. Typ‐
ical use cases include creation of data-driven applications, SQL-based reporting, spread‐
sheet conversion to web applications, Oracle Forms applications modernization to
HTML and Web 2.0, and Microsoft Access replacement.
APEX provides flexibility for development and deployment in a variety of scenarios
including local, on multitenant private Clouds (with workspaces for each department
and self-service provisioning), or on public Clouds such as the Oracle Database Cloud
Service. The framework is flexible in how applications might be accessed and in 2011
added support for mobile devices (leveraging jQuery Mobile) and HTML5.
