Getting my feet wet in Apex...

So the new place I work has some small applications built in Apex. I'm getting ready to build some monitoring tools and wanted to integrate their functionality into the apps that are already available.

Oracle publishes a document called the "2 Day + Application Express Developer's Guide" which can be completed in .5 or .75 of a day if you decide to use Oracle's free Apex sandbox. It will give you an idea of the capabilities of Apex while you build a few reports and an editing screen. Now I know why people are hooked on this environment, after a few hours working with the tutorial I am already creating useful applications.

The Apex 3.0 documentation is here: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B32472_01/doc/nav/portal_booklist.htm

You can request a free Apex Workspace from their publically available Apex site here: http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/apex. The free Workspace supplies enough storage and features to go through the whole 2-day tutorial.

My next challenges are getting familiar with all of the widgets that Apex provides and determining the best way to integrate security into my apps so I can make some information available without logging in but keep all the sensitive info locked up.

-- Dave