Over four years ago I had the idea for the first edition of this book, and the reason for the book was a deeply personal one: the Oracle APEX development team had sadly lost two members of the team, Carl Backstrom and Scott Spadafore. I knew both Carl and Scott and had met them a number of times at Oracle conferences over the years and corresponded with them frequently.

I was struck that both of these individuals had helped me over the years, and I wondered what I could do to help their families in some small way in return. I came up with the idea of writing a technical APEX book and donating all author royalties to their respective families.

To ensure the book was published and didn’t just remain in my head as a “good idea,” I came up with a plan. I approached a number of friends and fellow APEX experts and asked if they would consider writing a chapter. I have to say when I explained the purpose of the book to each of them, they all jumped at the chance.

Following the recent release of APEX 5, we once again decided it was time to update the book, again with all author royalties going to the same good causes. Once again I’m honored to know each of the chapter authors leapt at the opportunity. I thank each of them for agreeing to help update this book and continue helping, in our small way, the families of two people who helped us all over the years.

APEX 5 is the biggest release in the history of APEX, and the Oracle development team has done a tremendous job of making the APEX development environment a more productive, functional, and extensive development platform than ever before. We hope this book helps to show you why APEX 5 is second to none in terms of rapid web development backed by the security and functionality of the Oracle Database.

On a personal note, I would like to thank Jonathan Gennick and Jill Balzano of Apress for helping to shepherd us through the process of making the book a reality and supporting each of us in bringing our chapters to completion (which I can only imagine is like herding cats at times!).

—John Edward Scott