Introduction

Yogi Berra once said, “It's easy to get good players. Getting 'em to play together, that's the hard part.” Since you are reading this book, I am assuming you are already a skilled computer professional who is motivated to look for better ways of delivering high-value software to your customers. In other words, you are already a “good player.” This book's central theme speaks to Yogi's “hard part”: getting good players to play together.

To build a winning team, a coach needs good players, good equipment, and good plays. In the software development industry, the players are software developers who have a passion for building software systems and applications that deliver high value to their customers. Motivated software developers spend a significant amount of their personal time honing their existing skills and learning new ones. Oracle Application Express (APEX) is an excellent piece of equipment. In the hands of a skilled professional team, APEX is used to quickly build web applications that sit on top of an Oracle database. APEX is a seriously practical Rapid Application Development (RAD) tool. Agile Software Development is, for the software industry, an effective and lightweight playbook. The Agile Manifesto and its 12 underlying principles define a practical strategy for enabling software development teams to get valuable and stable software to the customer within a short time frame. APEX and Agile are a winning combination.

APEX and Agile are complementary. They fit together like a hand in a glove. This book's goal is to show you how the APEX tool and the Agile process work together. Both emphasize rapid delivery of software. APEX's efficient declarative software development environment enables software developers to live up to the Agile principle, “working software is delivered frequently.” APEX's Team Development module, especially its feedback mechanism, encourages and facilitates interaction among all stakeholders. Interaction among stakeholders is a core Agile value.

Using APEX and Agile together will energize you and your team, make you more productive, and will help you to soften Yogi's “hard part.”