ODTUG Day 2: Keynote Fusion + APEXPosed2007

Before beginning the second (and last day) of APEXPosed, there was the ODTUG Keynote.

Ted Farrell, VP Tools and Middleware gave an overview how he sees the Software Architecture in the New Era. Most of his talk was about Fusion and Java (ADF). I'm pretty sure some experts in this area will blog about it, so I won't go into a lot of detail.
One thing however I found quiet nice, was his demo about some new things in JSF. He showed some drag-drop capabilities, some animation when something loaded (get data), in fact an improved Amazon, if you like. In one screen you could check out and do changes on the fly, which I think is more user friendly. Behind the scenes a lot of that is AJAX, which you could use in for ex. APEX too.

Lab: High Fidelity Reporting with PL/PDF

PL/PDF is quiet handy when you want to create some advanced reports from PLSQL. I definitely found it an interesting session. A few weeks ago I was looking into BI Publisher (the XML/XSL way), but PL/PDF can maybe do even more advanced reporting, although it's quiet different. PL/PDF is programming PLSQL to make your report, where in BIP you could also use Word templates for ex.

During lunch the Best Paper and Best Speaker award got delivered. The Best Paper went to Wilfred van der Dijl, where the Best Speaker award was for Maggie Tomkins.


In the afternoon Joel Kallman talking about Managing APEX, which I found really interesting. This session was the most advanced one and maybe some people don't really care what is happening or how you can manage an APEX instance. It all depends how far you would like to go with the product, but I think it's always nice to know how something you're using works.


The last session of the day was about APEX APIs. Raj got deeper into APEX_ITEM, APEX_COLLECTION, APEX_UTIL and APEX_MAIL. Something you could expect from an Advanced training session. On the hand of a tabular form he touched the most importing things in the APIs area.

In the evening there was the APEX SIG meeting. A bit the same as at Collaborate, but where before it was organized by IOUG, it now was an ODTUG session.

In the evening I quickly went through my presentation and had a drink in the bar of the hotel with my other APEX friends.
(Oh, and this time I'm not on the picture with the waitress, that honor is for David Peake ;-))

Tomorrow it's my turn to give a presentation... I hope I can learn the people something after a full 2-day APEX training.