Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
A Brief History of APEX
APEX has been around for quite some time—perhaps even longer than most people know. The first public release of
APEX, or HTML DB as it was called then, came in 2004, but its history reaches back a long way.
Ancient History
APEX has its roots in technology that has been around for quite a while. In fact, parts of the PL/SQL Web Toolkit,
which is used under the covers by APEX to generate the HTML that is sent to the browser, date back to as early as 1994.
At that point in time, you
could
actually write web applications in PL/SQL by hand, and unfortunately we authors
did. This required not only a thorough knowledge of PL/SQL and HTML but also the patience of a saint and the
determination of a headstrong mule. The end result wasn't very pretty, and it was definitely not secure by today's
terms, but it was functional, if somewhat limited.
Not long after, Oracle introduced PL/SQL Server Pages (PSPs). This involved first coding the static HTML and
including special Oracle markup to indicate where dynamic data would go. Once you had the output looking as you
wanted, you then ran it through a program called
LOADPSP
. This would translate the raw HTML and the special Oracle
markup into a PL/SQL procedure that, again, used the PL/SQL Web Toolkit to emit the HTML including the dynamic
data you requested. At the time, this was a huge leap forward. Doug Gault worked at a company where he built an
entire framework around using PSP technology and deployed it at several clients.
Finally, in 1997, WebDB came on the scene. The true grandfather of what is now called APEX, WebDB was
revolutionary in that it was a 100% web-based tool that allowed developers to design web applications. It was written
entirely in PL/SQL even though Java seemed to be taking over the world. Developers could point WebDB at their
database and generate code that would produce forms, reports, charts, and calendars. There was no session-state
management, and there were no templates; once the code was generated, you couldn't go back through the tool.
WebDB allowed a large number of companies that wanted to jump on the web-based bandwagon to do so
without spending vast amounts of time and effort retraining their staff. As a tribute to its success, the authors know of
a number of companies that still have WebDB systems running in production environments.
Unfortunately, WebDB's days were numbered. Because it generated code (and if you didn't like the code it
generated, then too bad for you), it had already begun to fade from favor by the time it was absorbed into Oracle's
Portal product. However, creator Mike Hichwa didn't forget the glimpse of greatness that WebDB had seen.
More Recent History
Around 1999, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison presented Mike Hichwa (VP of Software Development) with the task of
creating an internal calendaring and scheduling system for Oracle Corp. The original remit was to use WebDB to
generate the initial code and then hand-code all the changes from that point forward. Mike, however, saw this as an
opportunity to completely rewrite WebDB into something that could be far more useful. Thus, with the help of Joel
Kallman and Tom Kyte, Oracle Flows was born.
Based on the success of the internal calendaring and scheduling system, the team was allowed to move forward
toward making Oracle Flows a product. In 2001, using what was then known as Flow Builder, Mike and his team
begin implementing systems for various customers, including one situation where they managed to replace a Java
development project that was going horribly wrong.
By 2003, the team had proven the tool's power, and they were given permission to release it as a product. HTML
DB 1.5 was released to the public as a no-cost option of Oracle 10gR1.
Since then, various releases have been introduced, each providing improved features and functionality. The
following is a very brief list of the releases and some of the more notable features:
•
HTML DB 1.6 (2004) introduced themes, master-detail forms, page groups, page locking, and
some multilingual capabilities.
•
HTML DB 2.0 (2005) introduced SQL Workshop, a graphical query builder, a database object
browser, and session-state protection.
