Prepare and Build - Oracle APEX Best Practices - page 2

APEX became available to the public in 2004 and then it was part of version 10 g
of the database. At that time it was called HTMLDB and the irst version was 1.5.
Before HTMLDB, it was called Oracle Flows, Oracle Platform, and Project Marvel.
Throughout the years many versions have come out and at the time of writing the
current version is 4.1.1. These many versions prove that Oracle has continuously
invested in the development and support of APEX. This is important for the
developers and companies who have to make a decision about which techniques to
use in the future. According to Oracle, as written in their statement of direction, new
versions of APEX will be released at least annually. The following screenshot shows
the home screen of the current version of APEX:
Home screen of APEX
For the last few years, there is an increasing interest in the use of APEX from
developers. The popularity came mainly from developers who found themselves
comfortable with PL/SQL and wanted to easily enter the world of web-based
applications. Oracle gave ADF a higher priority, because APEX was a no cost option
of the database and with ADF (and all the related techniques and frameworks from
Java), additional licenses could be sold.