Working on a project like this is not a singular effort. In my case, my family had to give me time to work on a daily basis, which wasn't easy for Reese and Ryan, my four- and seven-year-old daughters. They didn't really understand what I was doing (they're not APEX developers ... yet), but they knew that I was "working on the book" almost every night. My wife, Thanh, probably paid the highest price as I tried only to work after the kids were tucked in for the night. She was very supportive of this project and fell asleep next to me on the couch more times than I can count. For all of that, I thank my family more than they know.

During the course of writing this book, I learned a great deal more than I had anticipated, but I did not do it alone. The team that is Enkitec (my day job) is a group of people I like to call "home run hitters," many of whom are currently working on critical APEX projects. You'll see a few of their first names in this book, but I'd like to thank our core APEX team formally now: Brian Hill, David Little, and Toby Marks. I feel very lucky to be associated with a group of really smart people who genuinely enjoy what they do.

I ultimately have Kerry Osborne to thank for getting me into this project in the first place. He and another Enkitec colleague, Randy Johnson, were embarking on writing the Pro Oracle Exadata book and he encouraged me to join in the fun of technical writing. I actually thought at the beginning that I would be able to work on this project during business hours, but that didn't happen. It didn't happen for Kerry and Randy either so now we share stories of marathon writing sessions and comparing amusing comments from the editors.

Speaking of the editors, without their experience and guidance, this would be a very different book. Jonathan Gennick and Jessica Belanger of Apress worked diligently with me to ensure that I had all the resources I needed and that I stayed on schedule. Alex Fatkulin was also instrumental as a technical reviewer.

Since this book is a revision of the original Pro Oracle Application Express, I have to give the original authors their due. John Edward Scott and Scott Spendolini are obviously APEX experts in the truest sense of the word. The body of APEX knowledge that they created in the first edition is still relevant today and is a must for any serious APEX developer. Many of the concepts they describe apply to any Oracle-based development whether APEX, Java, or otherwise.

As for APEX in general, I continue to be amazed by the completeness and the professional feel of the development interface and applications created with it. APEX 4.0 takes application look and feel to a higher level than ever before and I find it truly amazing how easy APEX makes it is to create fully functional, professional applications. In my day job, I always offer APEX as the development language of choice for web-based applications. I explain it to my customers like this: in the time it takes to describe how a form should work, I can have it built in APEX. Development productivity can't be matched by any other environment (in my opinion). Maybe the best thing about APEX is that it's still 100% free.

—Tim Fox