xxi
First-Edition Foreword
When I wrote my first book, Pro Oracle Application Express, in 2008 (with Scott Spendolini contributing
a chapter on themes and templates), I found it an extremely rewarding experience. However, like a lot of
first-time authors, I found it tough to fit writing into my regular day job and other commitments. Pro Oracle
Application Express ended up taking a lot longer than originally anticipated and ran to almost twice as many
pages as originally planned, mainly because of my passion for the subject matter—I kept wanting to give
more and more information.
I was extremely happy to see that when Pro Oracle Application Express was released, it was a big
success, at times ranking in the top 1,000 of all books sold on Amazon, which is quite an achievement for a
technical book, let alone for a relatively niche area like Oracle Application Express. It was also the top-selling
book at Oracle OpenWorld that year.
So I’d done it. I’d written my first book, something I always wanted to do, and it was (by relative
standards) a great success. However, the questions soon started: “Hey, John, when are you writing another
book?” Well, my reply was, “Never again!”
Are you surprised by that answer? Well, let me qualify it. I have such respect for people like Tom Kyte
(who was kind enough to write the foreword to Pro Oracle Application Express) and my good friend, Steven
Feuerstein, who write book after book, but I simply don’t know how they manage to find the time to fit it into
their schedules. Writing one book, while extremely rewarding once it was published, was at times one of the
toughest things I’ve ever done. Sitting in front of a blank page at 4 a.m., trying to meet a publishing deadline,
does not quite fit the glamorous image I had of being an author.
However, two events changed my opinion on writing another book. Those events were the deaths of my
two good friends, Carl Backstrom and Scott Spadafore. Both Carl and Scott were longtime members of the
Oracle Application Express development team, and I have lost count of the number of times both Carl and
Scott have helped me in my time as a developer with Oracle Application Express. I also had the pleasure of
meeting Carl and Scott in person many times during the various Oracle conferences we all attended over
the years. One of my most vivid, happy memories during an Oracle conference was the day that Carl took
Dimitri Gielis and myself for a tour around San Francisco during Oracle OpenWorld. One of my other vivid
memories involves a deep discussion about the internals of APEX security with Scott Spadafore, sitting in a
bar late in the evening, before Scott then turned the conversation to telling jokes.
With the sad and very unexpected passing of both Carl and Scott, I wanted to do something to help
both families. Carl often spoke of his daughter, and I know that Scott was extremely proud of his family too.
Following the success of my previous book, I felt that the best way I could do something to help would be to
write another book where all of the author royalties were split between the charities of the two families.
Now since I already knew how much work is involved in writing a book, I came up with the idea of
asking other people if they would be interested in writing a chapter. At the ODTUG Kaleidoscope event last
year (2010), I approached my good friends, the authors whose names you see in this book, and asked each of
them if they would be interested in writing a chapter. I asked every one of these people because they all knew
Carl and Scott personally. I have the honor of saying that not one person hesitated to step up to the challenge
of donating their time, experience, and knowledge to make this book happen. For that I am deeply grateful
to all the authors (in alphabetical order): Anton, Dan, Denes, Dietmar, Dimitri, Doug, Francis, Martin, Mike,
Raj, Roel, and Sharon. There were many times when it looked like this book might never make it to print; it
was certainly a struggle to coordinate the book deadlines with the challenges of everyone’s day jobs.
www.allitebooks.com