Oracle Web Applications: PL/SQL Developer's Intro Developer's Introduction

By Andrew Odewahn

Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon

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Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal on the cover of Oracle Web Applications: PL/SQL Developer's Introduction is a boll weevil. The boll weevil is one of several snout beetles with a small beak or snout, which it uses to puncture the flower buds of the cotton crop as well as the fruits, which are known as bolls.

The boll weevil is regarded as a notorious pest-possibly the most destructive insect in North America-for its devastation of cotton crops in the southern United States since its migration from Mexico in the late 1800s. Although 90 percent of adult boll weevils die over the winter, the egg cycle from larva to adult takes only three weeks, so in one year between four and seven generations can be born. It's estimated that boll weevils destroy 10 percent of the cotton crop per year, which amounts to over $200 million in damage and affects at least 13 states in the U.S. Controlling the population of this small beetle is very difficult, as the chemicals that can eradicate them often cause too much environmental pollution to be safely used.

These beetles are not despised everywhere, however. The town of Enterprise, Alabama, is home to the Boll Weevil Monument-the world's only known monument to a pest. When boll weevils proved so destructive to their cotton crops in the early 1900s, farmers in this Alabama town (as well as across the Southeast) had no other recourse but to grow crops other than cotton, including hay, potatoes, and corn. Peanuts, however, were the most profitable crop, and brought so much wealth to the area that the town decided to erect a monument honoring the boll weevil, without whom the town never would have experienced such prosperity. Madeleine Newell was the production editor and copyeditor for Oracle Web Applications: PL/SQL Developer's Introduction. Clairemarie Fisher O'Leary proofread the book; Ellie Cutler and Nicole Arigo provided quality control. Mike Sierra provided FrameMaker technical support. The index was written by Pamela Murray. Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using an illustration created by Lorrie LeJeune. The cover layout was produced by Kathleen Wilson with QuarXPress 3.32 using the ITC Garamond font. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover?, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover's limit, perfect binding is used. The inside layout was designed by Alicia Cech, based on a series design by Nancy Priest, and was implemented in FrameMaker 5.5 by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Rhon Porter and Robert Romano using Macromedia FreeHand 8 and Adobe Photoshop 5. This colophon was written by Nicole Arigo.

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