Low-Code Development

I have been vibe coding in my spare time lately and managed to create and publish an iOS app called SnoreBuzzer  within 2(!) days. Do I have knowledge of the underlying Swift programming language? Zero. I created the app solely by prompting and focusing on the functional specification. OpenAI Codex did the heavy lifting: code generation, improving code quality, and documentation (incl. generating a data privacy statement). I specified my intent and tested the outcome. As a developer, I still kept an eye on the code to make sure it did not end up in a mess, so understanding the code is still required, but you definitely do not need to write it yourself anymore. As I let Codex make changes to my code, I regularly checked in to Git so I could easily revert changes if Codex messed things up, but that happened for only 5% of my prompts. Now to the big picture of this: a new age for developers is rising. In a couple of years, every developer will be using prompts for most of his developm...

  The 3-day conference schedule for APEX connect 2026 is now online  and it is packed with content for APEX & PL/SQL developers: 3 keynotes delivered by Carsten Czarski , Connor McDonald and Karen Cannell 70 regular 45 minute sessions  covering all topics around APEX, (PL/)SQL and its solutions 1:1 sessions with experts and several hands-on workshops To take you through all new exciting features of Oracle APEX 26.1 and Database 26ai , a lot of the key architects and product managers from around the globe are coming to APEX connect: - Carsten Czarski - Patrick Wolf - Ronny Weiß - Scott Spendolini - Connor McDonald - Ralf Müller - Sonja Meyer - Toon Koppelaars They will be accompanied with excellent presenters from the community, most of them having an Oracle ACE status. To name just a few: - Alex Nuijten - Karen Cannell - Moritz Klein - Patrick Barel - Philipp Hartenfeller - Philipp Salvisberg - Roel Hartman The magic happens 18-20 May in Heide Park (Soltau/Germa...

The software development lifecycle (SDLC) with Oracle APEX can take many forms. This blog post will give you an overview of four common scenarios. If you are interested to learn the details, I recommend reading the following paper from the APEX team: https://apex.oracle.com/go/lifecycle-technical-paper Author Steve Muench, Version 3.2, June 2025 1. Single environment, single developer In a situation where a single developer works directly against the production environment, the lifecycle couldn’t be simpler. In this scenario, you typically would create a working copy of the app in APEX, make changes, test and merge changes automatically back into the main app. You should regularly backup your app and the database in case you need to restore. This lifecycle is best suited for citizen developers and IT developers creating small and simple non-critical apps used by a few users. 2. Multiple environments, single developer When you’re working alone on different environments like developm...

Lately, I stumbled upon this thread on Reddit:  https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/18uj3id/why_im_skeptical_of_lowcode/ There are so many misunderstandings of "low-code" in this thread, that I tried to comment it, but it seems like this isn’t appreciated by the moderator. Maybe because there is a link in it, maybe because I am mentioning a product, I don’t know and I don’t have the time to “battle” the policy of Reddit, so I decided to post my thoughts in this blog post instead.  Being a professional low-code programmer, I use Oracle APEX and LLMs to speed up my development process. Does this mean that everything can be done using out-of-the-box components? Of course not. The last 20% is done by using traditional programming languages, but if you look at the total time required, it is dramatically reduced. When working with metadata (the 80% that makes up a low-code app) and not on a programmatic level, you gain several advantages. One is that the underlying techno...

Want to start developing web applications with Oracle Application Express (Oracle APEX)? Make sure you don't reinvent the wheel and adapt good practises from industry experts right from the start. Here are some tips for beginners: 1. If you don't already have Oracle APEX installed, don't install it yourself, but get a free workspace within minutes on apex.oracle.com  to be used for demo purposes. To learn about Oracle APEX in the Oracle Cloud, you can use the always free tier on cloud.oracle.com/free with two databases up to 20 GB database storage each without any cost. For production purposes, we recommend that you pay 115 €/month (as of 20-JAN-2025) for the Oracle APEX Service on the Oracle Cloud. 2. Start making your first apps using one of the Oracle APEX tutorials: Hyand (German):  apex.hyand.com/development  (includes good practises!) Oracle (English):  apex.oracle.com/en/learn/tutorials  ( here is a good overview of these) 3.  Take note ...

Oracle APEX 24.2 is out! Here are some of the major features in APEX 24.2 that I think are a great productivity booster for APEX developers. JSON Sources With storing JSON in a CLOB or BLOB column, you get some flexibility in your data model. Before 24.2, you couldn't let your APEX chart, form or report interact with the JSON structure without custom coding. With 24.2, this is now possible using JSON Sources. There is no need anymore to deal with JSON yourself using SQL, just let APEX do the heavy lifting. For those of you using 23ai of the Oracle Database, it works even with JSON Collection Tables and Duality Views! APEX Workflow enhancements Major features here include the possibility to call a workflow from with another workflow. This will let you re-use smaller workflow definitions. Also, a workflow administrator can now resume a workflow at any given activity in case of an unforeseen situation. Great must have features! For those of you that need to be BPMN-compliant, you migh...