Oracle Web Applications: PL/SQL Developer's Intro

Preface

Although the philosopher who gave us the phrase “May you be cursed to live in interesting times” probably didn’t have Oracle application development in mind, there’s no doubt that the saying is as applicable to us today as it was to the ancients.

Since the World Wide Web exploded on the corporate landscape, it’s been an exciting time for information technology professionals of all stripes: our skills are in demand, there are lots of exciting new things to learn, and people at dinner parties are actually interested in what we do and no longer recoil in horror at the mere mention of the word “computer.”

For most of us, though, the advent of the Web has been a mixed blessing. While there are many ways it can make life better, the steep learning curve has made it hard to take advantage of this potential. Even worse, we’re expected to deal with all these issues while keeping existing systems running smoothly. What most of us need is an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, approach to the Web: one that allows us to use our existing skills to solve immediate problems, yet gives us the breathing room to adapt to new concepts and tools.

Oracle Corporation’s latest database, Oracle8i (the i stands for Internet), provides just such a framework. Oracle8i allows you to use all your hard-won Oracle skills—data analysis and design, performance tuning, and SQL—to manage web content, develop web applications, and integrate those applications with your existing production systems. In an Oracle8 ...