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I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dirk Strack via Zoom to learn about his work in Oracle APEX and dive into some ways we could collaborate in the future. As a starting point we wanted to introduce Dirk to our Traust community by highlighting some of his great work in the web-based applications space using Oracle APEX.

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How long have you been working with Oracle APEX?

About 10 years. I started with APEX 3.5 in 2011 when a customer wanted to publish their budget reports from an Oracle database on the web.

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How long have you lived in Berlin?

I went to Berlin in 2002 for the night life and stayed because I developed great new friendships.

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Where is your favorite place to visit when you have time off?

I love to make long bike-packing tours across the alpine mountains and down the rivers to the Mediterranean coast.

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What do you love most about Oracle APEX?

I love this simple but sophisticated framework that you can customize and patch with the PL/SQL language and HTML5 features.

The APEX concepts are visionary and the documentation and teaching material is excellent compared to other systems.  By comparison, I had to use Omnis Studio and Visual Basic prior to APEX.

APEX apps will have a decade long life span because you can combine slowly changing database models with fast progressing HTML5 technology.

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Do you have a favorite project, if so what did it entail at a high level?

I started a data browser project, where I try out my ideas for further automation of the development process of APEX apps. The app basically scrapes the data dictionary views and then generates analytic queries and forms and the code to validate and save them without programming.

I want to make the point that constraint definitions in your DB schema are not invented to limit your freedom. Rather, they exist to add rules to your model that can drive the navigation, form generation and processing like I have seen in many other desktop apps.

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What would you like to learn next?

I like to explore the new DB features like SQL Macros and Polymorphic Table Function. I’m also interested in applying functional programming concepts in Oracle apps.

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What else would you like to share about yourself with the Traust community?

There is a rich trove of shared knowledge that is provided by so many dedicated individuals.  This played a big part of my success as an APEX programmer.

I like to share my solutions with other developers and small business owners. I have some experience in the domain of information systems, controlling, and document management and I support secure and fair computing.

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Wrap Up

At Traust, we echo Dirk’s sentiment about the APEX community. We appreciate the generous community of developers who share their time and talent with others. It is awesome when our contributions help someone else in the community in some way.

We are thrilled to know Dirk and are interested to learn more about his amazing work.  Look for a collaboration with him on some new things for the community in the near future!

To connect with Dirk on LinkedIn, click here.

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