The Community is One of Oracle APEX's Best Features
After reading the article "The R community is one of R's best features" by David Smith, I felt there were a lot of similarities between the R and Oracle APEX communities, and hence, was inspired to pen a copycat post. So here it is:
- #orclapex hashtag -
- Oracle APEX Ladies - none yet, but ODTUG has a strong community of women and some of them are top APEX developers. I'm sure we'll see a similar group forming in the near future! (/me nudge @McilroyJackie)
- Local Oracle APEX Meetup Groups - we have meetup groups all over the world, many of them supported by ODTUG's #GetInvolved program. The link brings you to a only list of meetups organized through Meetup.com. I hear there are more groups, especially in Asia (good number in Japan) that use a different platform for organizing their meetings.
- Oracle APEX Newsletters - some evangelists maintain their own aggregate of the week's best news on APEX, e.g. APEX Weekly by Roel Hartman. Others like apex.world publishes a monthly newsletter, and ODTUG has their blog aggregator that tweets out new posts as they bake fresh, so take your pick!
- Oracle APEX Blogs - oops, I jumped the gun on this one.
- The official Oracle Application Express Curriculum from the source - it's free and open sourced too. Enough said!
- Oracle APEX Conferences - take your pick (in order of when they usually happen)
- APEX World
- APEX Connection
- Kscope (My Choice Award ;-) )
- And a few smaller events. Use this link to track when and where they happen every year. Also, not to forget that there are some (a few) APEX sessions at Oracle OpenWorld.
- Github - R code is typically shared in the form of installable packages, and very similar to npm packages for Node.js. For Oracle APEX and PLSQL developers, we usually share code either in the form of plugins, PLSQL packages or tools. Here are some examples:
- [Plugins] On apex.world, click on "Plug-ins" > "Plug-ins".
- [Plugins] http://www.apex-plugin.com/ (some contribution might have the source code in Github repositories)
- [PLSQL] https://github.com/OraOpenSource/oos-utils
- [PLSQL] https://github.com/OraOpenSource/Logger
- [PLSQL] https://github.com/mortenbra/alexandria-plsql-utils
- [PLSQL] https://github.com/utPLSQL/utPLSQL
- Consortium? Hmm... I guess the closest would ODTUG's Application Express Community. The community has otherwise been very spontaneous. Everyone is and can be involved, and that includes members of the Oracle APEX development team.
But there's more:
- Slack - grab your invite by signing up as an apex.world member, and chat realtime with other members of the community.
- OTN Community Forums - probably the oldest social platform to have your questions answered.
- Twitter bot that monitors and tweets StackOverflow's Oracle APEX questions so that they get maximum reach.
I happen to think that there's much synergy between these two powerful platforms. Why? Let me attempt to convince you why Oracle APEX makes a great Research Data Management platform in a few bullet points:
- It allows
researchgroups to quickly create, collect and securely manage data. - Standards-based development without the fuss.
- Install the Quick SQL package app, and use markdown-like text to generate data models, and even sample data!
- Start from low code and advance to lots-of-code if required.
- Integrates readily with other systems and technologies through the use of web services, e.g. R, which I discussed in this earlier blog post.
- Analyze the data exclusively in R using a package like ROracle
- Start for free (forever) or scale up later by paying for more advanced features.
That's a lot of bullet points. Just one more. Much like R:
"[The] community is one of greatest assets of [Oracle APEX], and is an essential component of what makes [Oracle APEX] useful, easy, and fun to use. And you couldn't find a nicer and more welcoming group of people to be a part of."
Last but not least, if you are an R enthusiast who is curious to find out more about Oracle APEX, please feel free to reach out to me.