Customer Reviews

Beginning Oracle Application Express (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For someone like me who is managing a team of developers for software tools, I went through the book within a week. It took me a bit longer because I had been submitting about 5-6 erratas to the publisher. While I can understand why there may be a push to get the book out for the holidays, I had really hoped the example code provided on validation had worked as described in the book. However, if you are familiar with Oracle Application Express some what but don't have the time sit through training course, using this book will fast track you enough to be a hands-on APEX practitioner. If you are doing development today in APEX, I would recommend another book "Pro Oracle Application Express," by Scott Spendolini since that is what couple of my developers keep on their desks.
Good luck.

I have taught the Oracle Application Express course for Oracle for as long as the software has been available. I developed and teach a course for Portland Community College and I am using this book as the primary resource book for my students. I strongly recommend this book for those interested in getting a great start with Application Express.
David Jacob-Daub
www.oracle-educate.com
Beginning Oracle Application Express (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

I disregarded the one-star reviews before buying this book as I usually find 1-stars to be written by the angry and mis-informed. In this instance I'm finding myself agreeing with the single star reviews. I'll give the author up to 2 stars because I think they tried to explain the concepts in plain english...but this item is a rough draft copy at best.

About me - I am an absolute beginner in SQL and APEX that wanted to create a fairly simply departmental application using APEX. At first, I found the "click this" and "uncheck that" steps helpful...my hope was that the author would get around to explaining the reasons why later in the book after we crafted this simple order entry application. Well...that point never came to be because I wasn't able to get through the steps to create the final app. I made it about 110 pages into this book or 33%. Here is my list of issues:

1) The description of the steps do not match what I'm seeing on the APEX development screens - FAIL
2) Somewhere around page 103 where we start tying the page logic to the pages we created there is an error. APEX simply is not matching the description the author is publishing - FAIL
3) On my iPad Kindle Reader and my PC Kindle Reader the illustrations are so fuzzy (low resolution) it's impossible to compare them to what I am seeing in the APEX development environment, therefore requiring me to rely on the written description of the steps (see item 2 and 3 above) - FAIL
4) The Online list of errata are not helpful either - FAIL
5) Novice user has to try and decrypt why the author is taking some action - FAIL

The format with higher resolution photos and some explanation would have made this a workable solution - unfortunately its written by an expert for someone who is possibly more advanced than a beginner and poorly edited/reviewed.

How did this book make it through the final editing process?

DO NOT BUY - DO NOT CONSIDER

This book is okay for learning APEX, but not great.

Went through it with 3 other people, and we all agree. its a poorly written book.
Too much of it tells you to do stuff, without explaining why.

ie click this, uncheck this, pick this. run. looks nice right.
Ok , next

Would not buy.

Good enough for the beginner to APEX. However, there are very few beginner books on APEX out there. I was disappointed with the editing of this book. Some of the steps didn't follow what actually had to be done and it cause me to get some errors. Also, the code that came with it was incomplete, so I had to type it from scratch.

I went through this book and found it easy to follow and well thought out. There were plenty of screen shots to help. This book will not make you an expert, but it is certainly a great place to start if you want to move to Apex.

Beginning Oracle Application Express (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) I strongly recommend this book for everyone wanting to make the transition to developing "state-of-the-art" dynamic data-driven web applications or implement a transformation project of a legacy system with a prototype model. Using the Oracle-hosted APEX account, I was up and running within 10 minutes after creating the account. The book is based on APEX version 3.1 and the current hosted/download APEX version is 3.2 however the many screen shots are the same. The author introduces you to the APEX Functionalities as the "best practices" for the "User/Customer", "Administrator" and reports for Management with explanations and step-by-step instructions. Also the author expresses extending the APEX functionalities.

I can definitely say "I'm an Oracle APEX-or".

I am using this book for a class.

My classmates and I agree: THIS BOOK SUCKS. I am a seasoned SQL programmer and I find this book confusing. The directions are not clear. Getting to the places described in the book is ambiguous (at best). There are numerous errors and omissions of steps. The list of errors is endless.


I can't tell you how many times, I have restarted the project. When I fix one thing, something else breaks. All of us have had to drop the sample project and redo it many times to get the proper outcome. And even then...

Considering learning APEX - GOOD for you

Considering this APEX book - JUST SAY NO!

DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER THIS BOOK...IT SUCKS BIG TIME

Es un excelente libro para alguien que se quiera iniciar en el uso y desarrollo de aplicaciones con Apex de Oracle. No cubre los aspectos más complejos de la herramienta, pero es un buena base para comenzar.