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.
So, then, this book is dedicated to two people who were always so amazingly generous with their time and help, two people who were always held in the highest regard by the Oracle APEX community, and, most importantly, two people I had the honor calling friends.
—John Edward Scott
http://jes.blogs.shellprompt.net
www.apex-evangelists.com
I was fortunate enough to meet both Carl and Scott at the ODTUG Kaleidoscope conferences in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Carl was kind enough to spend some of his personal time answering all my questions and going through some of his examples with me. After writing about enhancing a security feature in APEX, Scott called me up right away to discuss it on a weekend. He was always very helpful, especially on the forums. Both Scott and Carl were great individuals who truly loved what they did and enjoyed passing along their wealth of knowledge to others. I’m honored to be able to contribute to this book in the same spirit that Scott and Carl engaged themselves within the Oracle community.
—Martin Giffy D’Souza
www.talkapex.com
www.clarifit.com
I had the distinct privilege of getting to know both Scott and Carl at many of the seminars and user groups they attended. Scott was scary smart with a dry and unforgiving sense of humor. His knowledge of the internal workings of APEX security was unmatched, and he shared the knowledge generously both in person and on the forums. Carl was quiet until you got to know him but a great guy and awesome JavaScript coder. In the early days, he personally helped me solve a few problems on how to integrate JavaScript into APEX, and his passion for APEX and JavaScript was apparent. When John Scott approached me with the idea of the book, I didn’t hesitate and am honored to be able to be part of this tribute to two truly great men.
—Doug Gault
I first got in touch with Carl and Scott “virtually” on the Internet, through the APEX forum and the blogs. They were both extremely helpful to me and everybody in the APEX community.
I believe it was in 2007, at Oracle OpenWorld, that I met Carl and Scott personally for the first time. I guess my blog post (http://dgielis.blogspot.com/2007/11/oow07-day-1-sessions-apex-meetup.html) from that time says it all: “At the APEX demo grounds I met Scott Spadafore for the first time. ‘He’s the man!’ some say, and I must confirm. Such a nice person, a great guy!”
I liked Scott very much, not only for his knowledge (especially in security) but even more for the person he was. And then Carl…I was truly shocked when I read about his car accident. Although we met in person only at the Oracle conferences, Carl became a real friend. I remember the many chats we had (in MSN). He was just a message away…I called him “Mister AJAX” because he was so strong in all the fancy web stuff. During conferences, we always met up.
When you were with Carl, there was always something happening. He had so many great stories. He liked to go out and have fun. I will never forget one Friday in San Francisco, just after OOW: Carl spent that day with John and me and showed us the coolest places in the city. He also took us to one of the best Chinese places in Chinatown and told us some great stories about his life. I remember Carl as an exceptional person—a great friend who was always willing to help others.
Scott, Carl, I feel honored to have known you both personally, and I am happy I could contribute to this book in your honor.
—Dimitri Gielis
The first time I met Carl in real life, it was during ODTUG’s Kaleidoscope in New Orleans. I got the chance to show him a plan board with a drag-and-drop feature—all built in APEX, of course. He was truly impressed by what I’d done, saying “Did you truly build that in APEX?” He even convinced me to show it to the other APEX development team members.
One of the most striking things about Carl, apart from the fact he always did his utmost best to help everybody, was his fear of presenting. Although everybody recognized Carl as the leading expert, knowing way more than everyone else, he always was so nervous. But I guess that was one of his charms as well! I also remember, during that same event, Carl, John, and myself sitting at the bar, drinking some whiskey. And every glass poured contained a fly! So we talked about the never-ending fly whiskey for a long time (after a thorough inspection, the bottle itself appeared to contain a lot of flies).
Before I met Scott for real, we had some contact on the OTN Forum. All about security, of course, because that was Scott’s main focus—but he also knew an awful lot of all other Oracle stuff! The thing I remember most is a night in Monterey during which the usual suspects of APEX people got together for some food and drinks. Scott was sitting next to Raj Mattamal, who is without any doubt the fastest speaker in the Oracle world. And with that they formed two opposites: Raj rambling on about whatever, and Scott just sitting there, most of the time silently. But every time Scott did say something it was either incredibly funny or so spot on, you couldn’t imagine.
We owe a lot to these two great guys. APEX wouldn’t be the great product it is today without them. They are missed a lot.
—Roel Hartman
As this book is an APEX one and nobody can deny Scott and Carl’s unbelievable contributions to the community, I wanted to take this dedication moment to express that these guys were first and foremost amazing people. I had the pleasure of calling these guys my friends since the early APEX days (and before), and it’s their unique personalities that I’ll never forget. Not a week goes by that I’m not reminded of a joke from Scott (even the bad ones) or a story from Carl —and I’m forever grateful for that. That the community could come together to put such a book as this together in tribute to them is surely a testament to their impact, but it’s critically important to me that people know what great guys they were as regular people.
—Raj Mattamal
http://nianticsystems.com
Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to meet Scott, but a quick look at the APEX forum’s “Top Users in Forum” list speaks volumes about the kind of guy he was—and his name will deservedly remain there for a long time to come. The number of people that Scott was able to help, myself included, is truly impressive and inspirational.
When it came to being helpful and inspirational, Carl was very much the same kind of guy that Scott was, and I’m very grateful to have met him. He was incredibly influential in my development career, having helped me along while I learned the basics of client-side development. He even introduced me to jQuery!
I find it especially rewarding to have been asked to write a chapter on plug-ins in APEX—a topic that often involves lots of JavaScript. To me it’s proof positive that people like Carl and Scott live on in those they helped and mentored. I will always strive to have the same impact on others as they had on me.
—Dan McGhan
The first time I met Scott was at my first OpenWorld in 2007. In fact, he was the first member of the APEX development team that I’ve had the pleasure to meet. I remember that he introduced himself and that he recognized me from the forum. He seemed happy to see me, and I immediately felt part of the community. During the same conference, I also had the chance to meet Carl and the rest of the team. They both were always available to answer questions and propose solutions. They took notes of our suggestions, and the next thing we knew they were included in the next APEX release. I have been using Oracle products for more than 20 years, and have never seen a product team as close to their users. And that is in large part because of Scott and Carl. I am honored to contribute to this project in memory of two great colleagues and friends, and I would like to thank John for giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to them.
—Francis Mignault
http://insum-apex.blogspot.com
www.insum.ca
Pictured left-to-right: John Scott, Carl Backstrom, and Dimitri Gielis at IOUG Collaborate event 2007
Scott Spadafore (standing) deep in discussion with John Scott