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Old Dog, New Tricks: A Journey From DBA to APEX Developer

By Jim Czuprynski
February 27, 2019

I officially started my career as an Oracle DBA in 2001, but my path to that role spans two previous decades of working on so many different projects, organizations, and teams that I’ve often forgotten what it was like to be an applications developer. I still remember the thrill I got the first time I wrote a SQL statement and actually got back a meaningful result; I recall the first time that I successfully built a new PowerBuilder application that pulled data right out of an Oracle database gave me a similar jolt of joy.

I recently returned to my application development roots when I decided to build a new set of applications using Oracle Application Express (APEX), and I used my experiences this past summer as a volunteer for a US Congressional campaign to construct a series of use cases and requirements for a mobile, flexible, responsive application for voter canvassing. Now thanks to my editors and colleagues at IOUG, I’ve had the opportunity to chronicle those experiences from my perspective as an “old-school” Oracle DBA with a new article series entitled A DBA’s Journey to APEX. So far that journey has three parts:

  • Part 1: From Napkin to Application In a Single Weekend explains how I constructed the original specifications and data model and built the original database schema for the application.
  • Part 2: If We Build It, the Voters Will Come chronicles my introduction to setting up an APEX workspace and building the first rough draft of the corresponding application components.
  • Part 3: Give Them a Lever, and They Will Move the World explains how I delved more deeply into APEX’s reporting and data entry capabilities, including the development of a mobile application for voter canvassing.

All content is free courtesy of Quest Oracle Community. I hope you get as much out of reading them as I did out of writing them. Happy computing!

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About Author
Jim Czuprynski

Jim Czuprynski has nearly four decades of professional experience in his career in information technology. He has served diverse roles at several Fortune 1000 companies – mainframe programmer, applications developer, business analyst, and project manager – before becoming an Oracle DBA in 2001. Jim was awarded the status of Oracle ACE Director in March 2014 and is a sought-after public speaker on Oracle Database technology features, presenting often at Oracle OpenWorld, IOUG COLLABORATE, ODTUG Kaleidoscope, Oracle Development Community tours, and Oracle User Group conferences around the world. Jim has authored over 100 articles focused on facets of Oracle Database administration to his credit since 2003 at databasejournal.com and IOUG SELECT. He has also co-authored four books on Oracle database technology.

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