Simon Hunt on Oracle APEX, Journey of Innovation, AI, and Technological Evolution

00:00:13: Kai Donato: Hello and welcome to another episode of

00:00:15: Kai Donato: Devs on Tape.

00:00:16: Kai Donato: This time, an English guest is sitting in

00:00:17: Kai Donato: front of me and I'm welcoming Simon Hunt,

00:00:21: Kai Donato: the head of product management for Oracle

00:00:23: Kai Donato: Apex.

00:00:24: Kai Donato: Hi Simon Hi Kai.

00:00:25: Kai Donato: Hi Simon Hi Kai.

00:00:27: Kai Donato: Sadly, I'm alone in the recording room with

00:00:29: Kai Donato: you right now because Kao previous

00:00:31: Kai Donato: listeners from previous recordings already

00:00:34: Kai Donato: know that Kao was waiting for her first

00:00:36: Kai Donato: child and was not able to make it to the

00:00:38: Kai Donato: conference here, so I'm talking to you

00:00:40: Kai Donato: today alone.

00:00:42: Kai Donato: So, yes, welcome Simon.

00:00:43: Kai Donato: Maybe you can introduce yourself to our

00:00:45: Kai Donato: listeners.

00:00:46: Simon Hunt: Thank you, kai.

00:00:47: Simon Hunt: Yes, my name is Simon Hunt, head of Product

00:00:48: Simon Hunt: Management for Oracle Apex.

00:00:50: Simon Hunt: I joined Oracle in April 24 and I took over

00:00:55: Simon Hunt: as Head of Product Management in October of

00:00:58: Simon Hunt: the same year.

00:01:00: Simon Hunt: My background prior to that was working in

00:01:03: Simon Hunt: the UK Ministry of Defence and I had done

00:01:05: Simon Hunt: that role ever since about 2002.

00:01:09: Simon Hunt: It was when I went from being a school

00:01:11: Simon Hunt: teacher if you can believe it in a girls'

00:01:14: Simon Hunt: school in Portsmouth where I was teaching

00:01:17: Simon Hunt: design, tech and IT, and I've always been

00:01:19: Simon Hunt: in the Army Reserve.

00:01:20: Simon Hunt: I've always been in the Army Reserve and I

00:01:22: Simon Hunt: had the opportunity to transfer and do some

00:01:25: Simon Hunt: full-time service as the in-service manager

00:01:28: Simon Hunt: on an Oracle project, okay, and that yeah,

00:01:31: Simon Hunt: that was early 2000s, was when I did that

00:01:35: Simon Hunt: and really that was the start for me.

00:01:38: Simon Hunt: So I came across Apex in 2004 and converted

00:01:42: Simon Hunt: some of my first applications from Java

00:01:45: Simon Hunt: over to Oracle Apex and then I, you know,

00:01:51: Simon Hunt: sort of went back from the regular forces

00:01:53: Simon Hunt: into the reserves and then continued as a

00:01:56: Simon Hunt: contractor and continued to do Apex and

00:01:59: Simon Hunt: Oracle systems really right up until 2024.

00:02:03: Simon Hunt: And I've done, you know, probably about 60

00:02:07: Simon Hunt: or been involved with around 60 production

00:02:08: Simon Hunt: applications across UK defense.

00:02:11: Kai Donato: Well, so when you were a teacher at the

00:02:13: Kai Donato: girls' schools, did you already have this

00:02:15: Kai Donato: IT background?

00:02:16: Kai Donato: Was it like informatics or something?

00:02:19: Simon Hunt: It was engineering, so my degree was in

00:02:22: Simon Hunt: engineering and I did that at the

00:02:24: Simon Hunt: University of Central Lancashire, but that

00:02:27: Simon Hunt: was, you know, the late 80s and early 90s.

00:02:30: Simon Hunt: We were doing a lot of programming as part

00:02:32: Simon Hunt: of that engineering course.

00:02:34: Simon Hunt: We were doing a lot of IT.

00:02:36: Simon Hunt: It was really the kind of start, I guess,

00:02:38: Simon Hunt: of the sort of IT revolution and I always I

00:02:42: Simon Hunt: don't know, I always had a kind of strong

00:02:44: Simon Hunt: inkling.

00:02:45: Simon Hunt: I did, for instance, when I did my A-levels,

00:02:47: Simon Hunt: I did computer science, okay, as part of

00:02:49: Simon Hunt: that and I was learning and I did Pascal

00:02:52: Simon Hunt: programming for instance, if you can

00:02:54: Simon Hunt: remember.

00:02:54: Kai Donato: But you can't remember Quite a distance

00:02:57: Kai Donato: between Apex and such a language, right,

00:03:00: Kai Donato: sure, sure, I heard about Pascal.

00:03:01: Kai Donato: Yeah, I heard about that, okay, sure, yeah,

00:03:02: Kai Donato: I heard about pascal.

00:03:03: Simon Hunt: Yeah, I heard about that, okay, well,

00:03:03: Simon Hunt: what's nice, pascal is a functional

00:03:05: Simon Hunt: programming language, not not dissimilar to

00:03:07: Simon Hunt: pl sequel.

00:03:08: Simon Hunt: But it was actually when, when I picked up

00:03:10: Simon Hunt: pl sequel you know it was I was like how

00:03:13: Simon Hunt: similar is this to, to pascal?

00:03:15: Kai Donato: there must be a reason that almost no one

00:03:17: Kai Donato: is talking about pascal these days, right,

00:03:20: Kai Donato: I guess, yeah, well you can remember all

00:03:22: Kai Donato: these different languages.

00:03:23: Simon Hunt: Uh, back in the day, fort Fortran BASIC,

00:03:26: Simon Hunt: you know you don't see them much anymore.

00:03:29: Kai Donato: But when you moved to the work at the

00:03:33: Kai Donato: Ministry of Defense right, you had already

00:03:36: Kai Donato: APEX knowledge right?

00:03:38: Simon Hunt: Not at all.

00:03:39: Simon Hunt: No, no, and that was pre-APEX, so it would

00:03:42: Simon Hunt: have been about 2001.

00:03:44: Simon Hunt: No, the turning point for me was the first

00:03:46: Simon Hunt: Java application that I was working on.

00:03:50: Simon Hunt: It ran through an applet in the browser and

00:03:54: Simon Hunt: on the networks.

00:03:55: Simon Hunt: That was seen by the network providers as

00:03:57: Simon Hunt: being client code, essentially, and they

00:04:00: Simon Hunt: had stringent rules around test and

00:04:02: Simon Hunt: integration.

00:04:04: Simon Hunt: So what I found was to make a single line

00:04:06: Simon Hunt: of code change in those applications.

00:04:11: Simon Hunt: It took a long time, it cost a lot of money

00:04:13: Simon Hunt: and at the end of the day we were just

00:04:15: Simon Hunt: delivering the content through a browser.

00:04:18: Simon Hunt: And I remember talking to Oracle at the

00:04:20: Simon Hunt: time and saying there's got to be a better

00:04:21: Simon Hunt: way to do this.

00:04:22: Simon Hunt: You know, I just want the web pages and at

00:04:24: Simon Hunt: the time there was kind of be a better way

00:04:26: Simon Hunt: to do this.

00:04:26: Simon Hunt: You know, I just want the web pages and at

00:04:27: Simon Hunt: the time there was kind of JSPs and ASPs

00:04:28: Simon Hunt: but they didn't quite deliver the level of

00:04:29: Simon Hunt: functionality that I wanted.

00:04:31: Simon Hunt: And it was through conversations with

00:04:33: Simon Hunt: Oracle that they said well, we've got this

00:04:35: Simon Hunt: product internally that we're looking to

00:04:37: Simon Hunt: release, you know.

00:04:38: Simon Hunt: And they demonstrated it to me and straight

00:04:41: Simon Hunt: away I was like that's it, that's exactly

00:04:43: Simon Hunt: what I'm looking for Cause.

00:04:44: Simon Hunt: I've got this great database and I just

00:04:46: Simon Hunt: want to generate web pages so that people

00:04:49: Simon Hunt: can update the data, and that was it really

00:04:53: Simon Hunt: from.

00:04:54: Simon Hunt: And then in 2004, that's when really I

00:04:56: Simon Hunt: started to use it and straight away I could

00:04:59: Simon Hunt: see the potential.

00:05:00: Kai Donato: Daniel Disney Now very passionate still.

00:05:01: Kai Donato: Peter Lawrence oh yeah, yeah.

00:05:03: Kai Donato: Well, it doesn't go.

00:05:04: Simon Hunt: Daniel Disney yeah, sure, but I remember

00:05:05: Simon Hunt: that afterwards, you know we'd be talking

00:05:07: Simon Hunt: to Oracle sales and they didn't quite get

00:05:10: Simon Hunt: it.

00:05:11: Simon Hunt: So they would be talking to me about Oracle

00:05:13: Simon Hunt: Portal or ADF, you know, and suggesting I

00:05:17: Simon Hunt: look at these other sort of development

00:05:19: Simon Hunt: frameworks and tools and I would be sitting

00:05:22: Simon Hunt: there going, but it's not Apex.

00:05:23: Simon Hunt: Apex is the one I want to use because it

00:05:26: Simon Hunt: does everything that I need and I could see

00:05:28: Simon Hunt: the potential moving forward.

00:05:30: Simon Hunt: And, of course, where are these other

00:05:31: Simon Hunt: technologies now?

00:05:32: Kai Donato: Yeah, you can see it definitely that

00:05:34: Kai Donato: there's a huge impact, a huge growth that

00:05:37: Kai Donato: Apex made right.

00:05:38: Kai Donato: So there's so much attention right now on

00:05:39: Kai Donato: that.

00:05:40: Kai Donato: Back to the time where you built something

00:05:43: Kai Donato: for the public sector.

00:05:44: Kai Donato: Back to the time where you built something

00:05:45: Kai Donato: for the public sector.

00:05:46: Kai Donato: So in my research and before the session,

00:05:48: Kai Donato: it was the most interesting question.

00:05:50: Kai Donato: So what kind of projects do you do in such

00:05:54: Kai Donato: a secret or critical environment?

00:05:57: Simon Hunt: Well, unsurprisingly, particularly with the

00:06:00: Simon Hunt: Oracle and the Apex, it's really the back

00:06:02: Simon Hunt: office systems.

00:06:03: Simon Hunt: Okay, you know it's, you know where it's

00:06:06: Simon Hunt: been very strong sort of you know,

00:06:08: Simon Hunt: certainly over the last 20 years.

00:06:10: Simon Hunt: Maybe that'll change moving forward.

00:06:12: Simon Hunt: I think there's huge potential at using

00:06:14: Simon Hunt: Apex at the edge, for instance, and in

00:06:17: Simon Hunt: disconnected environments.

00:06:19: Simon Hunt: But you know, like most organizations, Apex

00:06:23: Simon Hunt: is great with large data sets.

00:06:25: Simon Hunt: It's great at extending.

00:06:27: Simon Hunt: You know the Fusion or the other SaaS back

00:06:31: Simon Hunt: office systems, ebs, things like that and

00:06:34: Simon Hunt: that's really where it's come to its fore.

00:06:37: Simon Hunt: And you can imagine in, you know, in a

00:06:39: Simon Hunt: defense organization, there's a lot of

00:06:40: Simon Hunt: these back office systems logistics, hr,

00:06:43: Simon Hunt: that sort of thing.

00:06:45: Kai Donato: But they have a very critical impact on

00:06:48: Kai Donato: security, right?

00:06:49: Kai Donato: So you have to have everything very

00:06:50: Kai Donato: bulletproof, because even HR, even

00:06:53: Kai Donato: logistics for some facilities might be so

00:06:57: Kai Donato: critical that you cannot compare that to

00:06:59: Kai Donato: usual companies, right, a hundred percent.

00:07:01: Simon Hunt: And when I look back over the last 20 years,

00:07:03: Simon Hunt: many of the changes in Apex, particularly

00:07:06: Simon Hunt: around security, came from, you know, the

00:07:10: Simon Hunt: UK defense sector.

00:07:11: Simon Hunt: You know it was certainly I was talking a

00:07:13: Simon Hunt: lot with the Apex team saying you know, we

00:07:16: Simon Hunt: need to see these additional security

00:07:18: Simon Hunt: features and they need to be on out of the

00:07:20: Simon Hunt: box.

00:07:21: Simon Hunt: You know, and I'm thinking back

00:07:23: Simon Hunt: particularly around things like, uh, the

00:07:25: Simon Hunt: sort of page protection, getting the checks

00:07:27: Simon Hunt: on there.

00:07:28: Simon Hunt: You know that I remember having those

00:07:31: Simon Hunt: conversations back in 2005 saying you know,

00:07:34: Simon Hunt: we need to have this session state

00:07:35: Simon Hunt: protection in there.

00:07:36: Simon Hunt: We cannot have it so that people can update,

00:07:38: Simon Hunt: you know, from other pages session

00:07:40: Simon Hunt: information and then that needs to be on by

00:07:43: Simon Hunt: default yeah across all the pages.

00:07:45: Simon Hunt: So, uh, yeah, I, I can't think that.

00:07:48: Kai Donato: You know, it is really important, yeah,

00:07:50: Kai Donato: sure do you have still contact to to your

00:07:54: Kai Donato: previous work, so you're still in contact

00:07:56: Kai Donato: and getting all the security wise um

00:07:59: Kai Donato: information.

00:07:59: Kai Donato: So, like we need this, we need that, or

00:08:01: Kai Donato: we're using it like this, so you just

00:08:04: Kai Donato: switch chairs.

00:08:05: Simon Hunt: Yeah, it's funny.

00:08:06: Simon Hunt: Yeah, I'm in the UK.

00:08:07: Simon Hunt: We'd say you're poacher cum gamekeeper.

00:08:11: Simon Hunt: So, I'm now on the other side of the fence

00:08:13: Simon Hunt: and of course you know I have customers.

00:08:15: Simon Hunt: You know not just in the UK but across

00:08:18: Simon Hunt: defense sectors.

00:08:19: Simon Hunt: You know worldwide talking to me about

00:08:20: Simon Hunt: security and you know asking for the latest

00:08:24: Simon Hunt: tools and techniques to make sure their

00:08:26: Simon Hunt: applications and their data is absolutely

00:08:28: Simon Hunt: 100% secure so great working for so many

00:08:31: Simon Hunt: years in the same working environment?

00:08:35: Kai Donato: What made the switch to now I'm going to

00:08:38: Kai Donato: Oracle?

00:08:38: Kai Donato: Was it just the offer, or was it your own

00:08:41: Kai Donato: decision to say I need something new, I

00:08:43: Kai Donato: want to be closer to the product I love, or

00:08:45: Kai Donato: something?

00:08:46: Simon Hunt: It was a bit of everything actually.

00:08:49: Simon Hunt: I think it's quite a difficult question.

00:08:53: Simon Hunt: I have been doing the same thing for 20

00:08:55: Simon Hunt: years, okay, although there's a lot of

00:08:58: Simon Hunt: different projects going on, a lot of

00:09:00: Simon Hunt: different challenges.

00:09:01: Simon Hunt: But I did want to try something completely

00:09:04: Simon Hunt: new and completely different.

00:09:06: Simon Hunt: But I didn't want to go too far from my

00:09:07: Simon Hunt: comfort zone.

00:09:08: Simon Hunt: I wanted to do something where I knew I

00:09:11: Simon Hunt: could add value and, of course, apex has

00:09:15: Simon Hunt: been my passion.

00:09:16: Simon Hunt: It has been my career for the last 20 years.

00:09:19: Kai Donato: There's just one, one goal where you could

00:09:21: Kai Donato: go to right.

00:09:21: Simon Hunt: Yeah, it was.

00:09:22: Simon Hunt: It was either that or I was just going to

00:09:23: Simon Hunt: stay where I was until retirement.

00:09:23: Simon Hunt: But this is this goal where you could go to

00:09:24: Simon Hunt: right.

00:09:24: Simon Hunt: Yeah, it was, it was either that or I was

00:09:24: Simon Hunt: just going to stay where I was until

00:09:25: Simon Hunt: retirement.

00:09:26: Simon Hunt: But this is, this is the last job for me,

00:09:29: Simon Hunt: okay?

00:09:29: Simon Hunt: So I'm coming up to you know, I'm

00:09:31: Simon Hunt: approaching retirement age.

00:09:33: Simon Hunt: This is the last chance to to do something

00:09:36: Simon Hunt: different and just try something new.

00:09:39: Simon Hunt: For you know that last time before I look

00:09:41: Simon Hunt: at retirement, sounds great.

00:09:43: Kai Donato: I wish you very very much like that.

00:09:45: Kai Donato: Apex is still growing and you have your

00:09:46: Kai Donato: position right at your fingertips, what you

00:09:49: Kai Donato: want to do with the product.

00:09:51: Kai Donato: So you already talked in the presentation,

00:09:54: Kai Donato: I guess the keynote yesterday, about the

00:09:56: Kai Donato: roller coasters and so on here.

00:09:57: Kai Donato: That is not your thing, right.

00:10:00: Kai Donato: I was guessing the thrill and the

00:10:01: Kai Donato: adrenaline might be something that is

00:10:03: Kai Donato: totally fine for you.

00:10:03: Kai Donato: Yeah, yeah, not so much.

00:10:03: Kai Donato: I was guessing the thrill and the

00:10:03: Kai Donato: adrenaline might be something that is

00:10:04: Kai Donato: totally fine for you.

00:10:05: Simon Hunt: Yeah, yeah, not yeah, not so much, I don't

00:10:08: Simon Hunt: know it's, it's uh, age, I guess creeps up

00:10:10: Simon Hunt: on you is the problem.

00:10:12: Simon Hunt: It's true, I think you know, famously, I, I

00:10:16: Simon Hunt: I think I've said this before my last

00:10:19: Simon Hunt: rollercoaster ride was at Poulton's park in

00:10:21: Simon Hunt: the UK and I went on the Velociraptor with

00:10:24: Simon Hunt: my son, who's mad peeing on roller coasters

00:10:27: Simon Hunt: Okay, To the point where he closes his eyes

00:10:29: Simon Hunt: just to make it more intense and I went on

00:10:33: Simon Hunt: this roller coaster with him and I was fine

00:10:34: Simon Hunt: going forward.

00:10:35: Simon Hunt: I didn't enjoy it much, but I was okay

00:10:37: Simon Hunt: going forward.

00:10:38: Simon Hunt: But when I went backwards the ride didn't

00:10:40: Simon Hunt: stop.

00:10:41: Simon Hunt: When I got off I had vertigo for three

00:10:45: Simon Hunt: months afterwards.

00:10:50: Simon Hunt: I was just, I was just felt drunk and dizzy

00:10:52: Simon Hunt: for three months.

00:10:52: Simon Hunt: It was really very unpleasant and I had to

00:10:54: Simon Hunt: go to a chiropractor.

00:10:57: Simon Hunt: I can't remember the name of the move, but

00:10:58: Simon Hunt: they basically shake your head yeah, to

00:11:01: Simon Hunt: kind of get, yeah to get to get the kind of

00:11:04: Simon Hunt: crystals back into the right place in your

00:11:07: Simon Hunt: in your inner ear.

00:11:08: Simon Hunt: It worked amazingly, which was just good.

00:11:11: Kai Donato: What a wise decision from my side that I

00:11:13: Kai Donato: don't invite you to a roller coaster and

00:11:15: Kai Donato: make the interview right.

00:11:16: Kai Donato: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:17: Simon Hunt: That would be a nice gentle one.

00:11:19: Simon Hunt: Maybe you know I'm, I'm, I think I'm okay

00:11:21: Simon Hunt: as long as I'm going forward.

00:11:22: Simon Hunt: The log flumes look really interesting.

00:11:28: Kai Donato: Uh, I quite enjoyed the monorail from the,

00:11:29: Kai Donato: from the motor.

00:11:30: Kai Donato: It's just a public transportation thing,

00:11:31: Kai Donato: right?

00:11:31: Kai Donato: You didn't raise your hands up, right?

00:11:33: Simon Hunt: No, no, well, I was tempted Great.

00:11:37: Kai Donato: Awesome, yeah, I mean for our listeners.

00:11:39: Kai Donato: Maybe a little little callback in case you

00:11:41: Kai Donato: didn't hear the previous episodes of devs

00:11:43: Kai Donato: on tape.

00:11:44: Kai Donato: We're currently at apex connect in rust,

00:11:46: Kai Donato: and this is inside an amusement park the

00:11:49: Kai Donato: europa park it's called, and you have like

00:11:51: Kai Donato: 18 roller coasters here.

00:11:52: Kai Donato: So there are like two fractions of the of

00:11:55: Kai Donato: the visitors or the people here on the

00:11:57: Kai Donato: conference.

00:11:58: Kai Donato: One half is like constantly going to the,

00:12:01: Kai Donato: to the rides between sessions and the other

00:12:04: Kai Donato: ones.

00:12:04: Kai Donato: I say no, no roller coasters for me.

00:12:06: Kai Donato: And now I can know where I sought you in.

00:12:09: Kai Donato: All, right back to tech.

00:12:11: Kai Donato: You talked already about the AI stuff in

00:12:13: Kai Donato: Apex.

00:12:13: Kai Donato: I guess you are very positive about that or

00:12:16: Kai Donato: optimistic that Apex will gain way more AI

00:12:19: Kai Donato: features than it's currently having.

00:12:21: Kai Donato: Right, yeah, absolutely 100%.

00:12:25: Simon Hunt: We need to be leading the way in AI.

00:12:27: Simon Hunt: It's what our customers are expecting, it's

00:12:30: Simon Hunt: what the market dictates in order to remain

00:12:33: Simon Hunt: competitive, but it's also wider Oracle

00:12:36: Simon Hunt: strategy.

00:12:37: Simon Hunt: You know we need to be moving forward with

00:12:39: Simon Hunt: AI, but it's also amazing.

00:12:42: Simon Hunt: I mean, just look at it, what you can do

00:12:45: Simon Hunt: now.

00:12:46: Simon Hunt: It just blows my mind.

00:12:48: Simon Hunt: You know this is the next big tech

00:12:51: Simon Hunt: revolution.

00:12:52: Kai Donato: You know that the next questions, the next

00:12:55: Kai Donato: question has to be there.

00:12:57: Kai Donato: What were, what are we expecting from Apex

00:13:00: Kai Donato: to get in the next big features?

00:13:02: Kai Donato: Like, hopefully, something you didn't tell

00:13:04: Kai Donato: anyone before, when we get some insights.

00:13:07: Kai Donato: That's something I usually, or we usually

00:13:09: Kai Donato: do when we have someone from Oracle here,

00:13:12: Kai Donato: something no one else knows about that.

00:13:13: Simon Hunt: Yeah, yeah, well, it's only you know

00:13:15: Simon Hunt: perfectly well I can't say Another answer.

00:13:20: Kai Donato: Please repeat, Skip it.

00:13:22: Simon Hunt: But the I mean if mean, if you look at 2024,

00:13:25: Simon Hunt: that was, you know, that was the first year

00:13:27: Simon Hunt: really AI landed and we got these new

00:13:31: Simon Hunt: generative AI services.

00:13:33: Simon Hunt: 2025 is agentic.

00:13:35: Simon Hunt: Ai is essentially where things are going,

00:13:37: Simon Hunt: and then you know that's where we need to

00:13:39: Simon Hunt: be going with Apex.

00:13:40: Simon Hunt: So it is going to be bringing in more of

00:13:42: Simon Hunt: those agentic features is where I certainly

00:13:43: Simon Hunt: see the vision going.

00:13:44: Simon Hunt: So getting it going to be bringing in more

00:13:44: Simon Hunt: of those agentic features is where I

00:13:45: Simon Hunt: certainly see the vision going.

00:13:46: Simon Hunt: So getting it to be able to do things, I

00:13:48: Simon Hunt: mean I do wonder, moving forward, whether

00:13:50: Simon Hunt: an Apex application will be a UI as we know

00:13:53: Simon Hunt: it.

00:13:53: Simon Hunt: Why can't it just be a chat interface and

00:13:56: Simon Hunt: we'd start delivering Apex components out

00:13:58: Simon Hunt: through a chat interface.

00:14:00: Simon Hunt: You know that's.

00:14:02: Simon Hunt: You know how I see things going.

00:14:03: Simon Hunt: You look, look at some of the things we got

00:14:05: Simon Hunt: with interactive reports, interactive grids,

00:14:08: Simon Hunt: the jet components, the faceted searches,

00:14:10: Simon Hunt: those sorts of things.

00:14:11: Simon Hunt: Actually, you know, generating those

00:14:13: Simon Hunt: through through AI, I think is.

00:14:17: Kai Donato: Okay, so so you have like two two sides of

00:14:20: Kai Donato: the of the coin when you're developing the

00:14:23: Kai Donato: AI features, right.

00:14:24: Kai Donato: So you have the developer side, so make it

00:14:26: Kai Donato: easier for developers.

00:14:27: Kai Donato: So maybe so what I was talking about, like

00:14:29: Kai Donato: previous episodes of Devs on Tape, I think

00:14:32: Kai Donato: Mike Hitchwell, maybe Chris Rice if you get

00:14:35: Kai Donato: features like the exports from Apex,

00:14:39: Kai Donato: applications are more readable, more

00:14:41: Kai Donato: writable like.

00:14:41: Kai Donato: YAML format, I guess, and you have AI which

00:14:45: Kai Donato: can generate something based on the prompts

00:14:48: Kai Donato: you're writing and you can tell ChatGPT how

00:14:51: Kai Donato: the output file should look like and you

00:14:53: Kai Donato: can give it a definition, or maybe it's

00:14:55: Kai Donato: Cuhi or whatever you want to use you can

00:14:58: Kai Donato: tell.

00:14:58: Kai Donato: So this is the definition of an export file,

00:15:00: Kai Donato: of an export file of an Apex application.

00:15:01: Kai Donato: You have so many different modules you can

00:15:04: Kai Donato: use, like a page looks like this, an item

00:15:06: Kai Donato: looks like this, and so on.

00:15:08: Kai Donato: Please create an application that do

00:15:10: Kai Donato: exactly that what I want for my data, and

00:15:13: Kai Donato: it will be automatically completely created

00:15:16: Kai Donato: from start to end.

00:15:19: Kai Donato: So this would be something I would

00:15:20: Kai Donato: experiment with if Apex is not fast enough

00:15:22: Kai Donato: to provide it to a developer, right?

00:15:24: Kai Donato: So if you can say I have this database here

00:15:27: Kai Donato: and I can just tell you roughly what the

00:15:31: Kai Donato: user should do with the data and the UI

00:15:33: Kai Donato: From there on, start generate and then two

00:15:37: Kai Donato: minutes later, you have a complete

00:15:38: Kai Donato: application in Apex, completely created by

00:15:41: Kai Donato: AI.

00:15:42: Kai Donato: Yeah, you're nodding, right?

00:15:43: Kai Donato: I'm kind of nodding.

00:15:46: Simon Hunt: I think that's the dream, right?

00:15:47: Simon Hunt: I mean, that's where you end up.

00:15:50: Simon Hunt: I'm not sure it's going to be there.

00:15:53: Simon Hunt: It's certainly not there yet.

00:15:54: Simon Hunt: Yeah, so when I use AI, for instance, to

00:15:59: Simon Hunt: write JavaScript, I don't expect it to

00:16:03: Simon Hunt: write all the JavaScript in one go.

00:16:06: Simon Hunt: It's just not realistic and it actually

00:16:07: Simon Hunt: creates more problems.

00:16:09: Simon Hunt: What I'll do is I'll get it to do something

00:16:11: Simon Hunt: small and then I add a bit more.

00:16:14: Simon Hunt: Then I add a bit more and a bit more, and I

00:16:16: Simon Hunt: understand the JavaScript that it's writing.

00:16:18: Simon Hunt: It's just quicker for it to write it than

00:16:20: Simon Hunt: it is for me to write it.

00:16:21: Kai Donato: Yeah.

00:16:21: Simon Hunt: So you go through this kind of iterative

00:16:23: Simon Hunt: process.

00:16:24: Simon Hunt: That's how I think it will go with Apex.

00:16:26: Simon Hunt: I think it would be the same thing.

00:16:28: Simon Hunt: You'd start with a small application and

00:16:29: Simon Hunt: then you would add functionality to it.

00:16:32: Simon Hunt: I don't think you would sit down and try

00:16:34: Simon Hunt: and get it to build the application in one

00:16:35: Simon Hunt: go.

00:16:36: Simon Hunt: I just it could do it.

00:16:38: Simon Hunt: I just think it's going to create this

00:16:40: Simon Hunt: massive application that you're just going

00:16:42: Simon Hunt: to end up trying to delete bits out of it.

00:16:43: Simon Hunt: And you know it's a sort of similar thing

00:16:46: Simon Hunt: to now, when you know, when you write an

00:16:48: Simon Hunt: Apex application it's like don't go too

00:16:52: Simon Hunt: fast, too quick, because it takes more

00:16:54: Simon Hunt: effort to change code that you've got.

00:16:58: Simon Hunt: It's easier to get the code right first

00:17:01: Simon Hunt: time.

00:17:02: Simon Hunt: Does that make sense?

00:17:03: Kai Donato: Definitely yeah.

00:17:04: Kai Donato: So when I'm imagining if I imagine how this

00:17:07: Kai Donato: should work is you're creating an

00:17:08: Kai Donato: application and then you say create a new

00:17:10: Kai Donato: component like interactive grid for search

00:17:12: Kai Donato: or something, and then the page designer is

00:17:15: Kai Donato: asking you what you want to do, what you

00:17:16: Kai Donato: want to see.

00:17:17: Kai Donato: You're not clicking at everything like

00:17:19: Kai Donato: eight wizard steps or something, you are

00:17:22: Kai Donato: just answering some questions, maybe, and

00:17:24: Kai Donato: then the AI is just creating the one

00:17:26: Kai Donato: component for you and then you can refine

00:17:28: Kai Donato: it or something.

00:17:29: Kai Donato: This should be the first step, right?

00:17:30: Simon Hunt: I think so.

00:17:31: Simon Hunt: I think that's more realistic for models as

00:17:33: Simon Hunt: well, because you're asking the model to

00:17:35: Simon Hunt: not do so much.

00:17:36: Simon Hunt: It doesn't require as much knowledge to do

00:17:39: Simon Hunt: those smaller steps, because you could pass

00:17:41: Simon Hunt: it the context of where you're currently at,

00:17:44: Simon Hunt: and then it's just doing the next iteration,

00:17:46: Simon Hunt: whereas if you say, you know, build me an

00:17:48: Simon Hunt: application that does X, y and Z, it needs

00:17:51: Simon Hunt: to have the patterns and the knowledge, and

00:17:54: Simon Hunt: the models aren't there yet.

00:17:57: Simon Hunt: It's going to take a long time, I think,

00:17:58: Simon Hunt: for it to learn exactly how to build a

00:18:01: Simon Hunt: complex Apex application.

00:18:04: Kai Donato: That's exactly the next point I was

00:18:05: Kai Donato: guessing.

00:18:07: Kai Donato: So if you have something in the database

00:18:09: Kai Donato: like AI features and you have a model

00:18:11: Kai Donato: behind that and maybe sometimes it's more

00:18:13: Kai Donato: affordable to train such a network or such

00:18:15: Kai Donato: a LLM or something it could get used of

00:18:19: Kai Donato: your patterns, how you are working, so it's

00:18:21: Kai Donato: not create an Apex application.

00:18:23: Kai Donato: I look to the application and say, oh God,

00:18:24: Kai Donato: what's happening in here?

00:18:26: Kai Donato: I cannot even maintain that code because or

00:18:28: Kai Donato: maintain that application because it's not

00:18:31: Kai Donato: as close as what I would do when I create

00:18:34: Kai Donato: the application by myself, right.

00:18:35: Kai Donato: But if Apex is learning how you are working,

00:18:38: Kai Donato: like you're always creating an application,

00:18:40: Kai Donato: always avoiding select stuff from

00:18:43: Kai Donato: statements or queries, you're always being

00:18:45: Kai Donato: so specific with your columns.

00:18:47: Kai Donato: You're calling, or you're definitely every

00:18:50: Kai Donato: time you're creating an interactive grid,

00:18:51: Kai Donato: you're looking at not more than five to 10

00:18:55: Kai Donato: columns, for example, displayed.

00:18:57: Kai Donato: Apex could learn that, right.

00:18:58: Kai Donato: So if at some point it should be possible

00:19:01: Kai Donato: to say I need another page in this

00:19:03: Kai Donato: application, I have this new table in my

00:19:05: Kai Donato: data set.

00:19:06: Kai Donato: Please have a look at all the other pages

00:19:07: Kai Donato: and create it like that.

00:19:09: Kai Donato: That should be maybe the next step, for

00:19:12: Kai Donato: you're just nodding, grinning.

00:19:13: Kai Donato: I don't know if it's like the, the, the

00:19:15: Kai Donato: human kind of idea app I'm currently

00:19:17: Kai Donato: feeding right, yeah, or if it's maybe on

00:19:20: Kai Donato: the roadmap already, but yeah, I was very

00:19:22: Kai Donato: happy to see that we have ai integration in

00:19:24: Kai Donato: that, and I'm working heavily like on a

00:19:27: Kai Donato: project to have the tenders tenders for the

00:19:30: Kai Donato: public sector to be analyzed by ai, and

00:19:32: Kai Donato: that's the way we use uh, currently apex to

00:19:34: Kai Donato: communicate with assistants at chat, gpt,

00:19:36: Kai Donato: for example, one from open ai, and that's

00:19:39: Kai Donato: the reason why I'm looking closely to new

00:19:41: Kai Donato: features regarding ai communication with

00:19:44: Kai Donato: open AI in Apex and very interested to hear

00:19:47: Kai Donato: what you have to say for the future.

00:19:49: Kai Donato: Then, what's coming?

00:19:51: Simon Hunt: Can you rephrase the question?

00:19:54: Kai Donato: I know that there's an NDA for that.

00:19:57: Kai Donato: I'm just trying to get some, some new

00:19:59: Kai Donato: features out of you.

00:20:00: Kai Donato: What's coming concretely with AI in Apex.

00:20:02: Kai Donato: Out of you, what's coming concretely with

00:20:03: Kai Donato: AI in Apex.

00:20:04: Simon Hunt: I think it's fair to say that we're

00:20:08: Simon Hunt: certainly going to be improving what it

00:20:10: Simon Hunt: already does.

00:20:11: Simon Hunt: So RAG is a real game changer and you'll

00:20:14: Simon Hunt: see now that within Apex we've created this

00:20:17: Simon Hunt: kind of AI configurations section and we

00:20:20: Simon Hunt: started to add in RAG, but now it's kind of

00:20:23: Simon Hunt: more centralized we can start to add in

00:20:26: Simon Hunt: more features, more things.

00:20:28: Simon Hunt: So you're just going to get better AI

00:20:31: Simon Hunt: features as we move forward.

00:20:33: Simon Hunt: I can't really go into too much detail, but

00:20:35: Simon Hunt: there's some really great stuff.

00:20:36: Simon Hunt: Oh, come on.

00:20:38: Kai Donato: Really, really great stuff.

00:20:39: Kai Donato: Our listeners are now very hyped to see

00:20:41: Kai Donato: what's coming, I guess that's your job,

00:20:42: Kai Donato: right yeah?

00:20:42: Simon Hunt: so moving forward with the AI.

00:20:43: Kai Donato: Listeners are now very hyped to see what's

00:20:44: Kai Donato: coming.

00:20:44: Kai Donato: I guess that's your job, right?

00:20:45: Kai Donato: Yeah, so moving forward with the AI is

00:20:48: Kai Donato: definitely a step we need to see and even

00:20:51: Kai Donato: if it's like balance between developer tool

00:20:53: Kai Donato: sets or toolkits we can use to develop

00:20:56: Kai Donato: properly and faster in many cases and also

00:20:59: Kai Donato: for the end user, right?

00:21:01: Kai Donato: So if we have the ability to have faceted

00:21:02: Kai Donato: search interactive grid or interactive

00:21:02: Kai Donato: report being created by AI, it's not a

00:21:03: Kai Donato: benefit for the end user, right?

00:21:04: Kai Donato: So if we have the the ability to have

00:21:04: Kai Donato: faceted search interactive grid or

00:21:05: Kai Donato: interactive report being created by ai,

00:21:07: Kai Donato: it's not a benefit for the end user, right?

00:21:09: Kai Donato: But if there's any feature like, besides a

00:21:11: Kai Donato: chatbot, that it's obviously the first

00:21:13: Kai Donato: thing you do with an ai for an end user.

00:21:15: Kai Donato: And then the ui, yeah, right, but if

00:21:17: Kai Donato: there's kind of a voice interface, maybe

00:21:19: Kai Donato: you can talk with your application as an

00:21:21: Kai Donato: end user, not as a developer.

00:21:23: Kai Donato: That should be something that's on a

00:21:24: Kai Donato: roadmap too.

00:21:25: Kai Donato: 100%.

00:21:25: Simon Hunt: I mean, that's where we're going, yeah,

00:21:27: Simon Hunt: Okay, you know.

00:21:28: Simon Hunt: So all the things that you can currently do

00:21:29: Simon Hunt: with an Apex application, you know we will

00:21:33: Simon Hunt: I'm sure be in a position where you can

00:21:34: Simon Hunt: just do those through natural language.

00:21:37: Kai Donato: Yeah, Even if you're talking with the

00:21:39: Kai Donato: application, getting answers.

00:21:40: Kai Donato: But I could see what Apple intelligence,

00:21:42: Kai Donato: for example, is currently doing.

00:21:44: Kai Donato: It's like rephrasing or summarize some

00:21:48: Kai Donato: things for you that you have, just not the

00:21:50: Kai Donato: long text, not the long data set you're

00:21:52: Kai Donato: looking at.

00:21:53: Kai Donato: It's just condensing what you really need

00:21:56: Kai Donato: to know for this region.

00:21:58: Kai Donato: I'm currently rephrasing again a new idea

00:22:00: Kai Donato: for Apex.

00:22:02: Kai Donato: I can send it to you afterwards or you can

00:22:03: Kai Donato: see it in the show notes.

00:22:04: Kai Donato: So if you are on the page and you to you

00:22:04: Kai Donato: afterwards, or you can see it in the show

00:22:05: Kai Donato: notes, maybe.

00:22:06: Kai Donato: So if you are on the page and you see like

00:22:07: Kai Donato: diagrams or you see big data sets and you

00:22:10: Kai Donato: would prefer to highlight them in the

00:22:11: Kai Donato: interactive grid, but if it's possible to

00:22:13: Kai Donato: just click a button and saying, okay, this

00:22:16: Kai Donato: user is usually interested in having the

00:22:18: Kai Donato: business report for the current month.

00:22:20: Kai Donato: It's not interested in this and that and

00:22:22: Kai Donato: this, what you can see on the page, but

00:22:23: Kai Donato: it's just interested in the one answer it's

00:22:26: Kai Donato: been a good month, right?

00:22:28: Simon Hunt: And you see, I mean what do we do at Apex?

00:22:39: Simon Hunt: So, within Apex, what we do is we take

00:22:40: Simon Hunt: functionality that's already exists and,

00:22:47: Simon Hunt: where possible, free, within the framework

00:22:51: Simon Hunt: that you're already operating.

00:22:53: Simon Hunt: That's what we're trying to do.

00:22:54: Simon Hunt: So, actually, if you look at AI and what's

00:22:57: Simon Hunt: happening in AI, what's happening in a

00:22:59: Simon Hunt: database, that's what we're trying to do.

00:23:01: Simon Hunt: We're just trying to make it much, much

00:23:03: Simon Hunt: easier, much more accessible for people to

00:23:06: Simon Hunt: use.

00:23:07: Kai Donato: Do you think you are your velocity on

00:23:09: Kai Donato: bringing out new features AI driven

00:23:12: Kai Donato: features to Apex?

00:23:14: Kai Donato: Do you have a high velocity?

00:23:15: Kai Donato: Or do you think it's still Oracle or it's

00:23:18: Kai Donato: still a big company and you have to take

00:23:20: Kai Donato: care of many customers using it globally

00:23:23: Kai Donato: and you have to keep it a little bit slower

00:23:25: Kai Donato: to not overwhelm overwhelm someone.

00:23:27: Kai Donato: So do you think you are in good pace?

00:23:29: Simon Hunt: yeah, I think that's a really, really

00:23:31: Simon Hunt: important point that you make.

00:23:33: Simon Hunt: The pace has to be right.

00:23:34: Simon Hunt: We can't move too quickly.

00:23:36: Simon Hunt: I mean, there is a real danger that if you

00:23:37: Simon Hunt: go too hard, too fast, you alienate people

00:23:40: Simon Hunt: or you end up implementing technology that

00:23:44: Simon Hunt: then doesn't last the course and you have

00:23:47: Simon Hunt: people committed to it and they need to be,

00:23:50: Simon Hunt: you know, maintained and supported, moving

00:23:51: Simon Hunt: forward.

00:23:52: Simon Hunt: So we need to make sure that we get that

00:23:53: Simon Hunt: pace right, but we can't be too slow.

00:23:57: Simon Hunt: You know we've got.

00:23:58: Simon Hunt: You know we are operating within a

00:24:00: Simon Hunt: competitive market.

00:24:01: Simon Hunt: We need to make sure that we're keeping

00:24:02: Simon Hunt: pace with the competition and, where

00:24:04: Simon Hunt: possible, leading the way or being seen to

00:24:06: Simon Hunt: lead the way.

00:24:07: Simon Hunt: So it's a really important balance.

00:24:09: Simon Hunt: Do I think we get it right?

00:24:10: Simon Hunt: Pretty much, actually, I certainly.

00:24:12: Simon Hunt: When I was a customer which was, you know,

00:24:14: Simon Hunt: for over 20 years I was very happy with the

00:24:17: Simon Hunt: pace.

00:24:18: Simon Hunt: What I see now, in now that I work for

00:24:20: Simon Hunt: Oracle internally, I can see the level of

00:24:22: Simon Hunt: investment.

00:24:24: Simon Hunt: It's significantly increasing in Apex.

00:24:26: Simon Hunt: As Apex becomes much more mainstream, as it

00:24:30: Simon Hunt: becomes a strategic platform for Oracle,

00:24:32: Simon Hunt: what we're seeing is much more investment

00:24:34: Simon Hunt: happening with Apex, which is really great

00:24:36: Simon Hunt: to see.

00:24:37: Kai Donato: So you're still in contact with your

00:24:38: Kai Donato: previous work, right, I imagine.

00:24:41: Kai Donato: If you have some new features, like new

00:24:43: Kai Donato: release, apex 25.1 or something or whatever,

00:24:47: Kai Donato: and you bring up AI as a main feature, I

00:24:50: Kai Donato: always keep in my mind that customers out

00:24:53: Kai Donato: there are saying AI, no, we're not allowed

00:24:56: Kai Donato: to do that.

00:24:57: Kai Donato: So do you have some feedback from global

00:25:00: Kai Donato: customers that are saying it's nice to have

00:25:03: Kai Donato: AI, it's great to see that the product is

00:25:05: Kai Donato: being modern and innovative, but we cannot

00:25:09: Kai Donato: use AI at all.

00:25:10: Kai Donato: We're not allowed to use any external

00:25:12: Kai Donato: service, even like ChatGPT, which is based

00:25:15: Kai Donato: in America.

00:25:16: Kai Donato: We cannot use it at all.

00:25:17: Simon Hunt: So the next Apex release is basically for

00:25:19: Simon Hunt: us, it's just nothing new, and what you're

00:25:24: Simon Hunt: describing is actually a large number of

00:25:26: Simon Hunt: customers that I talk to are in exactly

00:25:28: Simon Hunt: that position.

00:25:29: Simon Hunt: What do I say to them?

00:25:30: Simon Hunt: Vectors, okay, look at vectors.

00:25:34: Simon Hunt: You can do vectors inside your 23 AI

00:25:36: Simon Hunt: database.

00:25:38: Simon Hunt: Vectors is certainly a good start point for

00:25:42: Simon Hunt: AI, so you can bring that semantic meaning

00:25:44: Simon Hunt: to your data.

00:25:45: Simon Hunt: When you and most of these organizations

00:25:48: Simon Hunt: will eventually be able to adopt generative

00:25:52: Simon Hunt: AI, and vectors is then giving you a

00:25:55: Simon Hunt: stepping stone to that technology, because

00:25:58: Simon Hunt: what you're going to want to do then is to

00:26:00: Simon Hunt: do retrieval, augmented generation and it's

00:26:02: Simon Hunt: much more efficient to do that using

00:26:04: Simon Hunt: vectors.

00:26:05: Simon Hunt: Sure.

00:26:06: Kai Donato: So when you're developing new features in

00:26:08: Kai Donato: Apex, you see that you have the balance

00:26:10: Kai Donato: between like vector usage in the database

00:26:13: Kai Donato: and using external services, right, yeah,

00:26:16: Kai Donato: okay, back in the days when REST interfaces

00:26:18: Kai Donato: were introduced, it was the same right.

00:26:20: Kai Donato: So you had all the different DBAs or

00:26:22: Kai Donato: customers that are saying okay, I have to

00:26:25: Kai Donato: open up the database to connect to REST

00:26:28: Kai Donato: endpoints or something.

00:26:29: Kai Donato: That's nothing we can do.

00:26:30: Kai Donato: And then you saw, like years presentations,

00:26:33: Kai Donato: new features regarding REST services and

00:26:35: Kai Donato: what you can do with that.

00:26:36: Kai Donato: You can create interactive grids and

00:26:39: Kai Donato: reports based directly on REST endpoints or

00:26:41: Kai Donato: something, and I had customers saying, no,

00:26:44: Kai Donato: we're going to do that.

00:26:45: Kai Donato: And now I'm seeing the same with AI right?

00:26:47: Simon Hunt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, but you can load

00:26:52: Simon Hunt: your ONNX embedding models directly into a

00:26:53: Simon Hunt: 23i database.

00:26:55: Simon Hunt: If you have 23i, this is still something.

00:26:58: Kai Donato: Maybe there's a coincidence that the same

00:27:00: Kai Donato: customers that are not allowed to use

00:27:02: Kai Donato: innovative new features, maybe like REST or

00:27:04: Kai Donato: AI, are not always on the newest database

00:27:07: Kai Donato: version.

00:27:08: Kai Donato: But at some point you have to say you have

00:27:09: Kai Donato: to upgrade to have new nice things.

00:27:11: Kai Donato: Right, yeah, exactly right, okay, great,

00:27:14: Kai Donato: let's go from AI development to test-driven

00:27:17: Kai Donato: development.

00:27:18: Kai Donato: That is something you did years before, so

00:27:20: Kai Donato: the first time I saw you, I was like it

00:27:23: Kai Donato: could be nine to 10 years ago, where you're

00:27:26: Kai Donato: talking about a testing framework.

00:27:28: Kai Donato: This is not leading to something with my

00:27:31: Kai Donato: other role.

00:27:31: Kai Donato: When I'm not a podcast host, we will not

00:27:34: Kai Donato: talk about the product you know from us.

00:27:37: Kai Donato: Am I allowed to talk about the product?

00:27:40: Kai Donato: You can, but I would not be someone who's

00:27:43: Kai Donato: trying to promote that.

00:27:44: Kai Donato: But regarding test-driven development, this

00:27:46: Kai Donato: is something that might have something to

00:27:48: Kai Donato: do with your past in the military, right?

00:27:52: Kai Donato: So I guess this is something important to

00:27:54: Kai Donato: do there?

00:27:55: Simon Hunt: Yeah, without doubt it's been, I guess, a

00:27:58: Simon Hunt: hobby, a passion of mine.

00:27:59: Simon Hunt: I could see the need.

00:28:01: Simon Hunt: So if you're going to do agile, you need to

00:28:04: Simon Hunt: automate.

00:28:05: Simon Hunt: If you're going to deliver regularly and

00:28:08: Simon Hunt: get that delivery cycle down, you can only

00:28:10: Simon Hunt: do it through automation, and we have great

00:28:13: Simon Hunt: tooling.

00:28:15: Simon Hunt: So, apex, you can run through a CICD

00:28:17: Simon Hunt: pipeline, you can do all your database

00:28:19: Simon Hunt: builds, so on and so forth, but how do you

00:28:21: Simon Hunt: test it?

00:28:23: Simon Hunt: And I could see the need for browser

00:28:26: Simon Hunt: testing.

00:28:27: Simon Hunt: It's complex, it's expensive, it can be

00:28:30: Simon Hunt: very fragile, but it does test the whole

00:28:33: Simon Hunt: stack, yeah, so there's clearly benefits to

00:28:36: Simon Hunt: doing it.

00:28:37: Simon Hunt: The problem that I could see, though, was

00:28:39: Simon Hunt: you had this highly productive technology

00:28:41: Simon Hunt: in apex, but then traditional browser

00:28:46: Simon Hunt: testing automation, you know, would

00:28:49: Simon Hunt: generally be coded, perhaps using java or

00:28:51: Simon Hunt: something similar.

00:28:52: Simon Hunt: Yeah, exactly so.

00:28:54: Simon Hunt: so what you had is a low code developer sat

00:28:56: Simon Hunt: next to high code tester yeah you know, one

00:29:01: Simon Hunt: would deliver a page in a day and one would

00:29:03: Simon Hunt: take three days to test the page.

00:29:05: Simon Hunt: It was kind of it.

00:29:07: Simon Hunt: You know it's, it's.

00:29:08: Simon Hunt: It's not quite those metrics, but you can

00:29:10: Simon Hunt: see the point that I'm trying to make.

00:29:11: Simon Hunt: You know, you would be losing the

00:29:13: Simon Hunt: productivity of apex because the automation

00:29:16: Simon Hunt: testing was was taking too long.

00:29:19: Simon Hunt: So I was looking for a way to do that in a

00:29:22: Simon Hunt: low code way.

00:29:23: Simon Hunt: Okay, so that was number one, so that

00:29:26: Simon Hunt: either you could get your developer to do

00:29:28: Simon Hunt: it would be option one or you could get

00:29:30: Simon Hunt: your tester to do it, but using low code

00:29:32: Simon Hunt: one.

00:29:32: Simon Hunt: Or you could get your tester to do it but

00:29:33: Simon Hunt: using low code in a more productive way.

00:29:34: Simon Hunt: So that's number one.

00:29:34: Simon Hunt: But then also you've got to look at a

00:29:36: Simon Hunt: strategy.

00:29:37: Simon Hunt: So you've got to look at the techniques

00:29:38: Simon Hunt: that you're using.

00:29:40: Simon Hunt: So I came up with a couple of things.

00:29:42: Simon Hunt: So when I'm doing browser-based testing, I

00:29:46: Simon Hunt: only look at positive testing, I don't do

00:29:48: Simon Hunt: negative testing.

00:29:52: Simon Hunt: I only look at positive testing, I don't do

00:29:53: Simon Hunt: negative testing.

00:29:53: Simon Hunt: Okay, the reason being is you know, for

00:29:54: Simon Hunt: each test you've, you've got maybe I don't

00:29:55: Simon Hunt: know 10, 100 negative tests exactly that

00:29:58: Simon Hunt: you could do.

00:29:59: Simon Hunt: So you're exploding the amount of testing

00:30:02: Simon Hunt: that you're going to need to do.

00:30:03: Simon Hunt: So that's that's kind of issue number one.

00:30:04: Simon Hunt: And kind of issue number two is actually

00:30:08: Simon Hunt: you want to test the critical pass really,

00:30:09: Simon Hunt: and you want to do the critical pass really

00:30:11: Simon Hunt: and you want to do it end-to-end.

00:30:12: Simon Hunt: That's really what you're looking to do

00:30:14: Simon Hunt: with your browser-based testing is to

00:30:16: Simon Hunt: identify those critical pathways through

00:30:18: Simon Hunt: your application and then just test it, but

00:30:21: Simon Hunt: also repeat testing it in different

00:30:23: Simon Hunt: scenarios with different data sets,

00:30:25: Simon Hunt: different user types, different roles and

00:30:27: Simon Hunt: that sort of thing.

00:30:28: Simon Hunt: So it is about sort of building that

00:30:31: Simon Hunt: methodology around what you're doing, as

00:30:34: Simon Hunt: well as then having productive test tooling.

00:30:38: Simon Hunt: And that's really where I came up with what

00:30:41: Simon Hunt: we called ATAF at the time, the Apex Test

00:30:43: Simon Hunt: Automation Framework.

00:30:44: Simon Hunt: I remember that, and one of the unique

00:30:47: Simon Hunt: things about Apex is you get this metadata

00:30:49: Simon Hunt: in the database.

00:30:50: Simon Hunt: And one of the unique things about Apex is

00:30:51: Simon Hunt: you get this metadata in the database so

00:30:52: Simon Hunt: it's all defined within tables in the

00:30:53: Simon Hunt: backend and you can use Apex views to see

00:30:57: Simon Hunt: what's going on.

00:30:57: Simon Hunt: So you can look at any page.

00:30:59: Simon Hunt: You can see what components are on the page,

00:31:01: Simon Hunt: what the IDs are, what the labels are.

00:31:03: Simon Hunt: You've got all the information and that is

00:31:05: Simon Hunt: what you would call a UI map.

00:31:07: Simon Hunt: Yeah, okay, in testing terms, well, that's

00:31:10: Simon Hunt: half of a testing framework that you've got

00:31:12: Simon Hunt: right there, and what's lovely about that

00:31:15: Simon Hunt: is it automatically changes and keeps

00:31:17: Simon Hunt: updated.

00:31:18: Simon Hunt: Yeah, you know.

00:31:19: Simon Hunt: So you would see other people writing

00:31:21: Simon Hunt: frameworks and they had to maintain a UI

00:31:24: Simon Hunt: map physically.

00:31:25: Simon Hunt: We have a UI map available essentially in

00:31:28: Simon Hunt: Apex, and it's always up to date.

00:31:31: Simon Hunt: So I started to have this idea that we

00:31:33: Simon Hunt: could use this to help, you know, create

00:31:35: Simon Hunt: this testing framework, and actually it

00:31:38: Simon Hunt: would tell me if something breaks.

00:31:40: Simon Hunt: I would know before if a test is going to

00:31:43: Simon Hunt: break.

00:31:44: Simon Hunt: Because I'll know that an item's changed,

00:31:46: Simon Hunt: you know so I'm like well, this, this could,

00:31:48: Simon Hunt: there's something here.

00:31:49: Simon Hunt: And then I started playing with it and you

00:31:52: Simon Hunt: builds out the framework using apex, and,

00:31:54: Simon Hunt: and the idea was it would generate a script,

00:31:57: Simon Hunt: but that that script could be anything.

00:31:59: Simon Hunt: It could be selenium, and you've got all

00:32:02: Simon Hunt: sorts of you know, different languages in

00:32:03: Simon Hunt: selenium.

00:32:04: Simon Hunt: It could be selenium, it could be cypress,

00:32:06: Simon Hunt: it could be whatever, and then you would be

00:32:08: Simon Hunt: able to take that and you would be able to

00:32:09: Simon Hunt: run that script.

00:32:10: Simon Hunt: So that was the idea.

00:32:11: Simon Hunt: But it does get more complex than that,

00:32:14: Simon Hunt: because one of the things you want to be

00:32:15: Simon Hunt: able to do is reuse a test case.

00:32:17: Simon Hunt: Sure, yeah, so I might have a test case

00:32:19: Simon Hunt: which logs in.

00:32:21: Simon Hunt: It's a login test case.

00:32:23: Simon Hunt: I only want to have that once.

00:32:25: Simon Hunt: I want to use that, write it once, use it

00:32:26: Simon Hunt: many times, use that, write it once, use it

00:32:27: Simon Hunt: many times, okay, but I want to then be

00:32:30: Simon Hunt: able to log in as all these different users.

00:32:31: Simon Hunt: So you have to separate your data from the

00:32:33: Simon Hunt: test case and then you need to be able to

00:32:36: Simon Hunt: take your test cases and put them into

00:32:38: Simon Hunt: different scenarios.

00:32:42: Simon Hunt: So we could call those specifications,

00:32:42: Simon Hunt: maybe, so you'd have test specifications,

00:32:44: Simon Hunt: test cases.

00:32:45: Simon Hunt: So I kind of, I built all that out and I

00:32:47: Simon Hunt: got it working, and it is an investment.

00:32:51: Simon Hunt: But once it, once you get it, once it works,

00:32:53: Simon Hunt: it's amazing.

00:32:56: Simon Hunt: It really is.

00:32:56: Simon Hunt: So you can, you know, do a nightly build

00:32:59: Simon Hunt: and get it to do all of your critical

00:33:01: Simon Hunt: testing and have it ready for the next day.

00:33:03: Simon Hunt: So what would normally take months, maybe

00:33:06: Simon Hunt: weeks or months, to release was now being

00:33:09: Simon Hunt: done automatically.

00:33:10: Simon Hunt: You know quite a time saver.

00:33:11: Simon Hunt: Release was now being done automatically.

00:33:11: Simon Hunt: You know quite a time saver.

00:33:12: Simon Hunt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a hundred, a hundred

00:33:13: Simon Hunt: percent.

00:33:14: Simon Hunt: But it is an investment.

00:33:15: Simon Hunt: It really is.

00:33:16: Simon Hunt: It's an investment in training, tooling and

00:33:19: Simon Hunt: and that kind of cultural shift.

00:33:22: Simon Hunt: But if you're going to move to agile, you

00:33:23: Simon Hunt: need to be looking at this.

00:33:25: Simon Hunt: So I talk to to a lot of people that want

00:33:27: Simon Hunt: to do it.

00:33:35: Simon Hunt: So everybody's kind of like this sounds

00:33:37: Simon Hunt: amazing.

00:33:37: Simon Hunt: Where do I start?

00:33:37: Simon Hunt: And the first thing I'd always ask them is

00:33:38: Simon Hunt: what unit testing are you doing?

00:33:39: Simon Hunt: Okay, and and if they say, well, we're not

00:33:41: Simon Hunt: doing any unit testing, I'm like start

00:33:42: Simon Hunt: there, because with unit testing it's

00:33:45: Simon Hunt: actually easier to do and you can get a lot

00:33:48: Simon Hunt: of benefit, but you can also do all that

00:33:50: Simon Hunt: negative testing and it gets you into the

00:33:53: Simon Hunt: the right frame of mind.

00:33:54: Simon Hunt: It starts to introduce you to the concepts,

00:33:57: Simon Hunt: the methodology and that sort of thing.

00:33:59: Simon Hunt: So if you're using utpl, sql, sql developer

00:34:02: Simon Hunt: or one of those which comes with the unit

00:34:03: Simon Hunt: testing framework within it, start there

00:34:06: Simon Hunt: and do as much of that as you can so that

00:34:09: Simon Hunt: you're exercising all of your PL SQL

00:34:11: Simon Hunt: packages.

00:34:13: Simon Hunt: Do that first and then it's a natural step

00:34:16: Simon Hunt: to browser automation.

00:34:18: Simon Hunt: Okay, but it also means that you'll do less

00:34:21: Simon Hunt: with your browser automation.

00:34:23: Simon Hunt: You won't be looking to test every part of

00:34:24: Simon Hunt: your system.

00:34:25: Simon Hunt: Sure, yeah, because you've already got

00:34:26: Simon Hunt: these unit tests.

00:34:27: Kai Donato: I mean, you have like so many processes in

00:34:29: Kai Donato: the database that are working behind closed

00:34:31: Kai Donato: doors.

00:34:32: Kai Donato: You're not even able to access them through

00:34:36: Kai Donato: the UI, right?

00:34:37: Kai Donato: If you click a button, create a dataset,

00:34:39: Kai Donato: okay, you can check if the dataset is there.

00:34:41: Kai Donato: But if you have like nightly cycles that

00:34:43: Kai Donato: are calculating new numbers, then you could

00:34:45: Kai Donato: just check.

00:34:46: Kai Donato: Okay, yesterday I had this value, tomorrow

00:34:48: Kai Donato: I have this value.

00:34:49: Kai Donato: Is this the correct value?

00:34:50: Kai Donato: But it's not saying which procedures in the

00:34:52: Kai Donato: back end are properly working right.

00:34:55: Kai Donato: So you cannot come around doing unit tests.

00:34:57: Kai Donato: You cannot just only trust on UI testing

00:35:00: Kai Donato: Exactly that Lino does a great session on

00:35:03: Kai Donato: this.

00:35:04: Simon Hunt: So we just came off our Nordic tour.

00:35:06: Simon Hunt: I got to see the session three times, okay,

00:35:10: Simon Hunt: and I learned something new each time.

00:35:11: Simon Hunt: And he talks about ATAFT, so he you know

00:35:14: Simon Hunt: his first few slides I was like, oh yeah, I

00:35:18: Simon Hunt: remember doing those, you know, about 10

00:35:20: Simon Hunt: years ago.

00:35:21: Simon Hunt: But he covers all of this and looks at

00:35:23: Simon Hunt: different tools, different techniques, and

00:35:25: Simon Hunt: I'd certainly recommend, if you get the

00:35:27: Simon Hunt: opportunity, to go and see it.

00:35:30: Kai Donato: There must be a recording right.

00:35:31: Kai Donato: I'm talking to Lino, so he's also testing

00:35:35: Kai Donato: products I might be or might not be

00:35:37: Kai Donato: affiliated to.

00:35:38: Kai Donato: That's something that might be in those

00:35:40: Kai Donato: presentations too.

00:35:41: Kai Donato: But yeah, so that's a very, very

00:35:44: Kai Donato: interesting approach.

00:35:45: Kai Donato: But what keeps Oracle or the Apex team from

00:35:48: Kai Donato: implementing something like ATEF by

00:35:51: Kai Donato: themselves If it's so necessary and

00:35:53: Kai Donato: important to do?

00:35:54: Simon Hunt: Yeah, I don't think we will.

00:35:57: Simon Hunt: I've not seen it on the roadmap.

00:35:58: Simon Hunt: What I think we can do is make it much

00:35:59: Simon Hunt: easier, and there are several things that

00:36:03: Simon Hunt: you can do.

00:36:03: Simon Hunt: So one of the problems I always had was

00:36:06: Simon Hunt: sort of sidebar menus, you know getting the

00:36:08: Simon Hunt: IDs correct on those.

00:36:09: Simon Hunt: So we've got hooks now that you can put

00:36:10: Simon Hunt: static IDs.

00:36:12: Simon Hunt: But I'd like to see us have a more stable

00:36:15: Simon Hunt: DOM.

00:36:16: Simon Hunt: Okay, so if you imagine region IDs, what

00:36:19: Simon Hunt: you'll see is the number.

00:36:20: Simon Hunt: There's like a long number, automatic

00:36:23: Simon Hunt: generated when you're not Exactly.

00:36:24: Simon Hunt: Yeah, and you know a lot of these are

00:36:26: Simon Hunt: generated from.

00:36:27: Simon Hunt: You know the metadata tables where it's

00:36:29: Simon Hunt: stored, and those numbers change.

00:36:35: Simon Hunt: So if you were to change the workspace id

00:36:36: Simon Hunt: or if you were to change the application id,

00:36:37: Simon Hunt: those numbers would all change.

00:36:37: Simon Hunt: You couldn't build a set of automation

00:36:39: Simon Hunt: tests and then test it.

00:36:42: Simon Hunt: You know in in different environments.

00:36:44: Simon Hunt: Necessarily you know if those those changed.

00:36:47: Simon Hunt: It wasn't a problem for me because you know

00:36:50: Simon Hunt: I was working for an organization.

00:36:52: Simon Hunt: I was only doing it for one application.

00:36:54: Simon Hunt: But if I had that application and I wanted

00:36:56: Simon Hunt: to test it in all of my customers different

00:36:58: Simon Hunt: customers and all of their environments,

00:37:00: Simon Hunt: then it would be a kind of different

00:37:01: Simon Hunt: proposition, I think.

00:37:03: Simon Hunt: So one of the things that I would like to

00:37:05: Simon Hunt: see us do is to make the DOM more stable.

00:37:07: Simon Hunt: Okay, is to make the DOM more stable, okay.

00:37:09: Simon Hunt: And then the next thing is getting that UI

00:37:11: Simon Hunt: map.

00:37:12: Simon Hunt: For me it was a very long concatenated SQL

00:37:18: Simon Hunt: statement, okay.

00:37:20: Simon Hunt: So I would be selecting from one Apex view

00:37:22: Simon Hunt: which would give me the buttons, and I'd

00:37:24: Simon Hunt: have another Apex view that would give me

00:37:25: Simon Hunt: the regions, and then another one that

00:37:27: Simon Hunt: would give me all the page items and I

00:37:29: Simon Hunt: would kind of union them together to give

00:37:31: Simon Hunt: me that ui map.

00:37:32: Simon Hunt: What I would really like is if apex

00:37:35: Simon Hunt: delivered me that ui map.

00:37:37: Simon Hunt: Okay, and it was, you know, fast and

00:37:39: Simon Hunt: performant.

00:37:40: Simon Hunt: So I think these are kinds of things that

00:37:43: Simon Hunt: we can do to make automation testing much,

00:37:47: Simon Hunt: much easier to do Okay.

00:37:49: Simon Hunt: And then, of course, our partners are

00:37:52: Simon Hunt: building out these frameworks.

00:37:53: Simon Hunt: You know the ACE community, developing all

00:37:56: Simon Hunt: these techniques and doing sessions on it.

00:38:00: Simon Hunt: So I think in combination, we can we can

00:38:02: Simon Hunt: absolutely crack this so that it's super

00:38:05: Simon Hunt: easy to do, very accessible, uh, and a

00:38:08: Simon Hunt: natural add on to Apex.

00:38:11: Kai Donato: I mean that that sounds nice.

00:38:12: Kai Donato: So, even if I already mentioned that I

00:38:14: Kai Donato: might be affiliated with one of those tools

00:38:16: Kai Donato: that are doing that, it's very nice to hear

00:38:18: Kai Donato: that Apex team is providing more help to

00:38:21: Kai Donato: get it stable right.

00:38:22: Kai Donato: So the specific example with the ID, the

00:38:25: Kai Donato: numbers, id or like ID or I think it was

00:38:29: Kai Donato: for interactive report, ir, and then a very

00:38:32: Kai Donato: big number behind that.

00:38:33: Kai Donato: So what we, or the people I know working

00:38:36: Kai Donato: with that, are doing is this is a learning

00:38:38: Kai Donato: part you have to do when you're a tester

00:38:40: Kai Donato: with a tool that is doing that, you have to

00:38:44: Kai Donato: tell them wherever you can set a static ID,

00:38:47: Kai Donato: do it.

00:38:48: Kai Donato: If you can't do it, you have to find a way

00:38:50: Kai Donato: to create a selector and this is the part

00:38:53: Kai Donato: that the company or the group that is doing

00:38:56: Kai Donato: the testing framework has to find out a way

00:38:58: Kai Donato: like how do I access this element, even if

00:39:01: Kai Donato: it has different IDs?

00:39:02: Kai Donato: So I have to move up to the way higher

00:39:05: Kai Donato: element and go in there and say, okay, find

00:39:07: Kai Donato: the first element that's from this type and

00:39:09: Kai Donato: have these attributes and avoid getting the

00:39:11: Kai Donato: ID, because this is changing right and if

00:39:14: Kai Donato: the Apex team is providing more help like

00:39:16: Kai Donato: that, I guess it would be way easier for

00:39:18: Kai Donato: people that are working with that so

00:39:21: Kai Donato: successfully shipping around the test

00:39:23: Kai Donato: framework I'm affiliated to, but maybe to

00:39:28: Kai Donato: the end end.

00:39:28: Kai Donato: So, regarding developer enablement, so we

00:39:32: Kai Donato: already heard that you still or keep

00:39:35: Kai Donato: working on AI features for developers in

00:39:37: Kai Donato: the page designer.

00:39:38: Kai Donato: What else is going on or what is coming in

00:39:41: Kai Donato: future for developers in Apex?

00:39:44: Kai Donato: So there is something I have to rush in.

00:39:47: Kai Donato: We see it in SQL quick.

00:39:48: Kai Donato: We see it in SQL CL.

00:39:49: Kai Donato: We see many project-related features that

00:39:52: Kai Donato: you can work like versioning systems easier,

00:39:56: Kai Donato: creating Apex applications back in the day,

00:39:58: Kai Donato: export from there.

00:39:59: Kai Donato: But regarding Page Designer and Apex itself,

00:40:02: Kai Donato: what is doing for the developer enablement

00:40:05: Kai Donato: and experience?

00:40:06: Simon Hunt: Yeah, so certainly around AI.

00:40:09: Simon Hunt: What you're going to start seeing is, at

00:40:10: Simon Hunt: the moment, you can build an application

00:40:12: Simon Hunt: using AI.

00:40:13: Simon Hunt: The next progression from that will be to

00:40:16: Simon Hunt: edit.

00:40:16: Simon Hunt: You know, to add components, features,

00:40:19: Simon Hunt: change pages using natural language.

00:40:21: Simon Hunt: So I think you're going to see that whole

00:40:23: Simon Hunt: sort of natural language development start

00:40:26: Simon Hunt: to appear in more detail.

00:40:29: Simon Hunt: You know, within the, you know the page

00:40:31: Simon Hunt: designer, within page designer, within

00:40:33: Simon Hunt: different parts of Apex.

00:40:34: Simon Hunt: So we're going to see much more integration

00:40:36: Simon Hunt: of AI into the developer tooling that we've

00:40:38: Simon Hunt: already got?

00:40:39: Kai Donato: Are we going to see new components in the

00:40:41: Kai Donato: future?

00:40:42: Kai Donato: So always when the new features come in,

00:40:44: Kai Donato: like Interactive Grid, we were waiting

00:40:46: Kai Donato: years for that.

00:40:47: Kai Donato: We were talking to different people from

00:40:49: Kai Donato: the Apex team.

00:40:49: Kai Donato: We're very close to them, so we're talking

00:40:51: Kai Donato: each and every time and talking about

00:40:53: Kai Donato: things like the model underlying the

00:40:55: Kai Donato: interactive grid.

00:40:56: Kai Donato: We talk about so many things and always

00:40:58: Kai Donato: when something new we didn't see coming,

00:41:00: Kai Donato: it's coming out and said, okay, I couldn't

00:41:02: Kai Donato: have seen that coming, but for now I see

00:41:06: Kai Donato: many improvements for working with the

00:41:08: Kai Donato: existing stuff.

00:41:09: Kai Donato: Are there any anything on the roadmap that

00:41:11: Kai Donato: is regarding a new component I cannot think

00:41:13: Kai Donato: of right now.

00:41:14: Simon Hunt: I'm kind of limited on what I can talk

00:41:16: Simon Hunt: about and what I can say.

00:41:17: Simon Hunt: But what?

00:41:18: Simon Hunt: Probably not new, but I think what you're

00:41:20: Simon Hunt: going to see is with the existing

00:41:22: Simon Hunt: components.

00:41:23: Simon Hunt: You're going to see more AI features within

00:41:25: Simon Hunt: those existing components, if that kind of

00:41:28: Simon Hunt: makes sense.

00:41:29: Kai Donato: Definitely, yeah, yeah, I'm guessing that

00:41:31: Kai Donato: all the components getting AI features

00:41:33: Kai Donato: right, that is.

00:41:33: Kai Donato: You can see it coming, can't you?

00:41:35: Simon Hunt: You know, and we've already got, for

00:41:37: Simon Hunt: instance, you know, so we've put vector

00:41:39: Simon Hunt: search into our search configurations for

00:41:42: Simon Hunt: instance.

00:41:43: Simon Hunt: Major step forward, you know, and I think

00:41:45: Simon Hunt: you're going to see that, so that then, you

00:41:48: Simon Hunt: know, starts to come into faceted searches

00:41:50: Simon Hunt: with when you've got cards on screen and

00:41:52: Simon Hunt: you want to do searches there.

00:41:54: Simon Hunt: You know, so you can see that AI is going

00:41:56: Simon Hunt: to start to form part of all of those

00:41:58: Simon Hunt: standard components that you've got within

00:41:59: Simon Hunt: Apex.

00:42:00: Kai Donato: So no new faceted search.

00:42:03: Kai Donato: Part two I would ask you concretely for new

00:42:05: Kai Donato: components, but I cannot think of anything

00:42:07: Kai Donato: that is missing in Apex.

00:42:08: Kai Donato: For new components, but I cannot think of

00:42:07: Kai Donato: anything that is missing in Apex and this

00:42:07: Kai Donato: is not just talking positive about the

00:42:11: Kai Donato: product, but yeah so, improvements of all

00:42:14: Kai Donato: the page designers nice, we have SQL

00:42:15: Kai Donato: Workshop in the browser right now from a

00:42:17: Kai Donato: different team right, that is already

00:42:19: Kai Donato: awesome too.

00:42:20: Kai Donato: We have developing tools like Visual Studio

00:42:23: Kai Donato: Code implementations that can work easier

00:42:25: Kai Donato: than that, that there's nothing really more

00:42:28: Kai Donato: I can imagine that we should do.

00:42:31: Kai Donato: But maybe the last topic in the technical

00:42:33: Kai Donato: area might be something regarding the cloud

00:42:36: Kai Donato: implementation for Apex.

00:42:38: Kai Donato: So we always see changes in the development

00:42:40: Kai Donato: of Apex itself.

00:42:41: Kai Donato: So we see there's not a really early

00:42:43: Kai Donato: adapter environment anymore, it's rolling

00:42:46: Kai Donato: out inside Oracle internally.

00:42:49: Kai Donato: Then we have rollout like first cloud, then

00:42:53: Kai Donato: on-premises to download, and there's some

00:42:55: Kai Donato: time in between and you use, I think, the

00:42:57: Kai Donato: internal Apex environments to debug the

00:43:00: Kai Donato: first beta version and then you go to the

00:43:02: Kai Donato: cloud environment, then you get the next

00:43:04: Kai Donato: feedback and if it's everything's stable

00:43:06: Kai Donato: now and maybe one or two patches later, you

00:43:09: Kai Donato: roll it out to end users for on-premises,

00:43:11: Kai Donato: right, yeah, what is the idea behind

00:43:14: Kai Donato: leaving out like beta testers from the

00:43:17: Kai Donato: beginning, like we did like the last 15

00:43:20: Kai Donato: years?

00:43:20: Simon Hunt: That's a good question.

00:43:21: Simon Hunt: I'm not sure I've got a good answer for you

00:43:24: Simon Hunt: on that one.

00:43:25: Simon Hunt: I mean we try to do as much testing as

00:43:28: Simon Hunt: possible.

00:43:29: Simon Hunt: You know that's clearly important.

00:43:31: Simon Hunt: We want to find out.

00:43:32: Simon Hunt: You know the bugs and the issues with what

00:43:34: Simon Hunt: we've done.

00:43:35: Simon Hunt: You know way before they get anywhere.

00:43:37: Simon Hunt: You know near the customers.

00:43:38: Simon Hunt: You know but we are kind of limited that.

00:43:41: Simon Hunt: You know the environments are changing.

00:43:42: Simon Hunt: You know we're learning.

00:43:44: Simon Hunt: Cloud has clearly been a big game changer,

00:43:47: Simon Hunt: so I'm not sure I've got a great answer.

00:43:51: Kai Donato: So is it coming back?

00:43:52: Kai Donato: Is it something like that coming?

00:43:53: Simon Hunt: back?

00:43:54: Simon Hunt: I hope so.

00:43:55: Simon Hunt: I'm not sure is the answer, I don't know.

00:43:58: Simon Hunt: One of the areas that I think that I would

00:44:00: Simon Hunt: like to see us move into is to do more

00:44:03: Simon Hunt: integration of cloud services, oci services

00:44:06: Simon Hunt: particularly.

00:44:08: Simon Hunt: You know, more kind of I'm trying to think

00:44:10: Simon Hunt: how best to put it you know, more switch on

00:44:12: Simon Hunt: capabilities.

00:44:14: Simon Hunt: So perhaps you know, if I'm spinning up an

00:44:16: Simon Hunt: autonomous database, I've got Apex or if

00:44:19: Simon Hunt: I'm using the Apex service, for instance,

00:44:21: Simon Hunt: make it much easier to bring your own

00:44:24: Simon Hunt: domains.

00:44:25: Simon Hunt: You know.

00:44:25: Simon Hunt: So at the moment there's quite a lot of

00:44:27: Simon Hunt: architecture you need to do yourself.

00:44:29: Simon Hunt: You know you would need to sort of switch

00:44:30: Simon Hunt: on these additional services.

00:44:32: Simon Hunt: Maybe we can make that a lot easier for

00:44:33: Simon Hunt: customers.

00:44:34: Simon Hunt: Yeah, so if I've got an idea, I've got a

00:44:36: Simon Hunt: domain that I want, I could just go and

00:44:39: Simon Hunt: literally just do that almost in one click,

00:44:42: Simon Hunt: and we're starting to do this more and more.

00:44:44: Simon Hunt: Okay, right, so in 24.2, we've made it much

00:44:46: Simon Hunt: easier to integrate APEX with Fusion, for

00:44:48: Simon Hunt: instance.

00:44:49: Simon Hunt: Okay, and you can go to database tools and

00:44:53: Simon Hunt: you can make your connections there between

00:44:55: Simon Hunt: your Fusion environment and your APEX

00:44:56: Simon Hunt: environment.

00:44:57: Simon Hunt: I think we can do much more of this, you

00:44:59: Simon Hunt: know.

00:45:00: Simon Hunt: So we can make it much easier to integrate

00:45:02: Simon Hunt: with identity and access management, with

00:45:04: Simon Hunt: object storage, with generative AI services,

00:45:09: Simon Hunt: with DocGen, with all these other things.

00:45:12: Simon Hunt: Just to make it much, almost like it's just

00:45:15: Simon Hunt: a pick list, and you just, which services

00:45:18: Simon Hunt: do I want to have with this Apex

00:45:19: Simon Hunt: environment?

00:45:20: Simon Hunt: The other thing that I noticed as a

00:45:21: Simon Hunt: customer when I moved to the cloud I spent

00:45:24: Simon Hunt: the first three months architecting what I

00:45:28: Simon Hunt: wanted to do, because I wanted high

00:45:29: Simon Hunt: availability, you know, resilience.

00:45:31: Simon Hunt: I wanted all these things that we needed to

00:45:33: Simon Hunt: have a web application firewall, for

00:45:35: Simon Hunt: instance, you know.

00:45:36: Simon Hunt: So we wanted all these security features we

00:45:39: Simon Hunt: wanted to have, you know, failover to a

00:45:41: Simon Hunt: separate data center, you know, for

00:45:43: Simon Hunt: disaster recovery, all that sort of thing

00:45:45: Simon Hunt: and we spent three months architecting,

00:45:47: Simon Hunt: designing, testing.

00:45:49: Simon Hunt: That should be way easier To get to that

00:45:52: Simon Hunt: environment, you know.

00:45:53: Simon Hunt: So I think we can help customers here by

00:45:57: Simon Hunt: having more reference architectures Like

00:46:00: Simon Hunt: blueprints.

00:46:01: Simon Hunt: Blueprints, exactly that Having Terraform

00:46:03: Simon Hunt: scripts available so that they can be built

00:46:05: Simon Hunt: out quickly and easily, and so I think

00:46:09: Simon Hunt: that's the direction of travel that we need

00:46:11: Simon Hunt: to be going in.

00:46:12: Simon Hunt: You know, it would have saved me three

00:46:13: Simon Hunt: months, but I'd also get a sense that I

00:46:15: Simon Hunt: wasn't the only person doing it.

00:46:17: Simon Hunt: I wasn't coming up with a unique

00:46:18: Simon Hunt: configuration.

00:46:18: Simon Hunt: This was a configuration that was tried and

00:46:21: Simon Hunt: tested and was going to deliver for me.

00:46:23: Simon Hunt: You know it would give me that level of

00:46:25: Simon Hunt: insurance.

00:46:25: Simon Hunt: So I think that's kind of something that

00:46:27: Simon Hunt: we're going to be looking for it's always

00:46:30: Simon Hunt: always the same issue we already talked

00:46:31: Simon Hunt: about, right?

00:46:32: Kai Donato: So if you're working heavily on integrating

00:46:35: Kai Donato: OCI services for Apex, where you can just

00:46:37: Kai Donato: enable things, that is, bringing away

00:46:40: Kai Donato: easier maintenance for Apex, then you have

00:46:43: Kai Donato: AI stuff that is working for people that

00:46:45: Kai Donato: are open to it and the company is allowing

00:46:47: Kai Donato: it, but there are still people with older

00:46:50: Kai Donato: databases on-premises without the ability

00:46:53: Kai Donato: to use such a thing and you still have to

00:46:55: Kai Donato: provide things for them, right?

00:46:57: Simon Hunt: Or do you say no, no, we still have to.

00:47:00: Simon Hunt: That's one of the great things about APAC.

00:47:02: Simon Hunt: You know apps and services that I built in

00:47:05: Simon Hunt: 2004 are still running.

00:47:07: Simon Hunt: You know they're still there and you know

00:47:09: Simon Hunt: Oracle maintains them, essentially through

00:47:12: Simon Hunt: just a normal patching process.

00:47:14: Simon Hunt: You know it's the same application that I

00:47:17: Simon Hunt: built, but it's getting all of these new

00:47:19: Simon Hunt: features naturally as Apex upgrades.

00:47:21: Kai Donato: Okay, one last open question Okay, very

00:47:25: Kai Donato: open, I guess when do you see Apex in five

00:47:28: Kai Donato: years?

00:47:30: Kai Donato: You have the time to think about that, but

00:47:32: Kai Donato: what is your vision of that?

00:47:34: Simon Hunt: Well, I think it's, and one of the things I

00:47:37: Simon Hunt: see internally is the growth of Apex and

00:47:40: Simon Hunt: the direction of travel.

00:47:41: Simon Hunt: I see Apex being bigger, more popular,

00:47:45: Simon Hunt: delivering more capability, really being at

00:47:48: Simon Hunt: the forefront of low code, but getting more

00:47:52: Simon Hunt: and more mainstream as we move forward.

00:47:56: Simon Hunt: I see internally the commitment, the

00:47:58: Simon Hunt: investment in Apex.

00:48:01: Simon Hunt: Will we still there in five?

00:48:02: Simon Hunt: years I guess, Without doubt, and I've seen,

00:48:06: Simon Hunt: certainly as a customer, I've seen other

00:48:07: Simon Hunt: technologies come and go.

00:48:09: Simon Hunt: I don't see that in Apex.

00:48:11: Simon Hunt: Apex is here for the long term.

00:48:15: Simon Hunt: It's done so well.

00:48:17: Simon Hunt: You know, when I looked at it in 2004, you

00:48:20: Simon Hunt: know, to see where it is now actually, it

00:48:23: Simon Hunt: was a natural progression.

00:48:25: Simon Hunt: I could see it.

00:48:25: Simon Hunt: I think it's.

00:48:26: Simon Hunt: You know, if you'd asked me in 2004 where I

00:48:29: Simon Hunt: thought Apex would be, I probably would

00:48:31: Simon Hunt: have been describing something like what it

00:48:32: Simon Hunt: is now.

00:48:33: Simon Hunt: You know.

00:48:34: Kai Donato: Apex would be, I probably would have been

00:48:35: Kai Donato: describing something like what it is now.

00:48:37: Kai Donato: You know we had different steps during the

00:48:38: Kai Donato: growth of Apex like more releases a year.

00:48:40: Kai Donato: Yeah, not only waiting for the next bigger

00:48:41: Kai Donato: release.

00:48:42: Kai Donato: Then we have this step like Apex 5 and then

00:48:44: Kai Donato: Apex 18 or something like that, the

00:48:46: Kai Donato: versions rising and now we have like it was.

00:48:50: Kai Donato: I think it was a plan to have like four

00:48:52: Kai Donato: versions per year and this was the

00:48:55: Kai Donato: intention in doing that, but we see a very

00:48:58: Kai Donato: high velocity in new features.

00:48:59: Kai Donato: The team is growing.

00:49:01: Kai Donato: There was a time I knew each and every Apex

00:49:05: Kai Donato: developer that is currently working.

00:49:07: Kai Donato: I guess this is not even possible for

00:49:09: Kai Donato: someone inside the team to know everyone in

00:49:12: Kai Donato: the team, right?

00:49:13: Kai Donato: Yeah, exactly.

00:49:13: Simon Hunt: So what's the count?

00:49:13: Kai Donato: right yeah exactly yeah so.

00:49:15: Kai Donato: So what's the count right now?

00:49:16: Kai Donato: 60 people or no?

00:49:18: Simon Hunt: no, it's way over a hundred and growing,

00:49:21: Simon Hunt: still growing.

00:49:22: Simon Hunt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and and

00:49:25: Simon Hunt: completely global team, which is great, but

00:49:29: Simon Hunt: it has its challenges.

00:49:30: Simon Hunt: Trying to get everybody on a call, for

00:49:31: Simon Hunt: instance you know, just with the, with the

00:49:35: Simon Hunt: time zones.

00:49:35: Simon Hunt: You know there's some people, it'll either

00:49:37: Simon Hunt: be very late at night or very early in the

00:49:38: Simon Hunt: morning.

00:49:39: Simon Hunt: But what's lovely is is when, as you travel

00:49:41: Simon Hunt: around the world and you go to different

00:49:42: Simon Hunt: conferences or you know different bits,

00:49:45: Simon Hunt: you'll meet new people from the apex team

00:49:48: Simon Hunt: would you, would you describe, describe the?

00:49:52: Kai Donato: okay, let me see how I can pronounce that

00:49:55: Kai Donato: that the internal people working on Apex is

00:50:00: Kai Donato: comparable to the Apex community you have

00:50:02: Kai Donato: outside Oracle, so that it's kind of a

00:50:05: Kai Donato: specific ecosystem inside Oracle.

00:50:08: Kai Donato: That's something I heard back in the days

00:50:09: Kai Donato: that the Apex people are almost like

00:50:13: Kai Donato: they're different than other people at

00:50:15: Kai Donato: Oracle and other teams.

00:50:16: Kai Donato: Right, they're working together, going on

00:50:18: Kai Donato: conferences.

00:50:18: Kai Donato: They're very open and communicating with

00:50:20: Kai Donato: end users, not closed up and saying you

00:50:23: Kai Donato: have to write an SR for that or something.

00:50:26: Kai Donato: Here's my number call me if something went

00:50:28: Kai Donato: wrong.

00:50:28: Kai Donato: I don't know how many times I did this in

00:50:30: Kai Donato: the last 11 years.

00:50:32: Kai Donato: So do you think that the Apex developing

00:50:35: Kai Donato: team, even if it's beyond 100 developers,

00:50:38: Kai Donato: is still comparable to the community?

00:50:41: Simon Hunt: I think so.

00:50:42: Simon Hunt: Yeah, I do, I genuinely do.

00:50:44: Simon Hunt: It's the passion that comes through and you

00:50:48: Simon Hunt: know a lot of.

00:50:50: Simon Hunt: Certainly even the new people that are

00:50:51: Simon Hunt: coming on board have come from the

00:50:52: Simon Hunt: community, have had something to do with

00:50:54: Simon Hunt: Apex, have been in and amongst the

00:50:55: Simon Hunt: community, and you get that passion that

00:50:57: Simon Hunt: comes through.

00:50:58: Simon Hunt: That spirit is still there when you look.

00:51:01: Simon Hunt: Even at this conference now, you know the

00:51:04: Simon Hunt: local people from the Apex team.

00:51:06: Simon Hunt: All will come.

00:51:07: Simon Hunt: They are here to talk to customers, to talk

00:51:09: Simon Hunt: to partners.

00:51:11: Simon Hunt: They are probably oversharing their email

00:51:14: Simon Hunt: addresses or whatever, but they're

00:51:15: Simon Hunt: passionate and they want to be talking to

00:51:17: Simon Hunt: customers.

00:51:18: Simon Hunt: You know, and everybody's excited about

00:51:20: Simon Hunt: Apex and you know where it's going.

00:51:23: Kai Donato: That's great.

00:51:23: Kai Donato: I'm looking forward to it not to change and

00:51:25: Kai Donato: that it keeps its chemistry and it's

00:51:27: Kai Donato: working exactly like it's done.

00:51:29: Simon Hunt: It has to keep its soul right.

00:51:31: Simon Hunt: I think moving forward, you know it's what

00:51:34: Simon Hunt: draws people to Apex.

00:51:36: Simon Hunt: We don't want to lose that, okay great.

00:51:38: Kai Donato: What a nice way to end the Apex talk itself.

00:51:42: Kai Donato: So we are going, we're coming to an end,

00:51:44: Kai Donato: almost.

00:51:44: Kai Donato: I have a couple of categories I have to ask

00:51:47: Kai Donato: you, so this might not be related to Apex,

00:51:49: Kai Donato: maybe we will see.

00:51:55: Kai Donato: So the first question from the category

00:51:56: Kai Donato: hypothetically, if you could undo one

00:51:57: Kai Donato: technological trend of the recent years,

00:51:58: Kai Donato: what would it be Right.

00:51:59: Simon Hunt: Okay, I'm not going to win any friends on

00:52:00: Simon Hunt: this one, okay, but there is.

00:52:02: Kai Donato: I heard that before in different sessions.

00:52:06: Simon Hunt: Certainly amongst my family.

00:52:08: Simon Hunt: The one technology that's just driving me

00:52:11: Simon Hunt: mad at the moment is gaming.

00:52:13: Kai Donato: Okay.

00:52:13: Simon Hunt: Okay, okay, I have a 13 year old son and

00:52:17: Simon Hunt: certainly for the past four or five years,

00:52:19: Simon Hunt: I am deeply concerned about the content,

00:52:23: Simon Hunt: the amount of time that he is spending, you

00:52:26: Simon Hunt: know, in front of a gaming console, and I

00:52:31: Simon Hunt: can see some benefits to it.

00:52:33: Simon Hunt: So let me, let me tell you this.

00:52:35: Simon Hunt: So I caught him in front of the TV playing

00:52:37: Simon Hunt: a fishing game.

00:52:38: Simon Hunt: So he's literally, you know, sat on the

00:52:41: Simon Hunt: sofa, you know, and the screen is the edge

00:52:44: Simon Hunt: of the boat and there's a river and he's,

00:52:47: Simon Hunt: he's kind of using his joystick to fish, uh,

00:52:52: Simon Hunt: and then I pointed out that we have a river

00:52:54: Simon Hunt: at the bottom of the garden that's got fish

00:52:57: Simon Hunt: in it and perhaps he might want to get off

00:53:00: Simon Hunt: his backside and go and learn how to do it

00:53:02: Simon Hunt: properly.

00:53:04: Simon Hunt: You know, and bless him, he does now fish,

00:53:07: Simon Hunt: uh, real fishing.

00:53:09: Simon Hunt: He does real fishing now.

00:53:10: Simon Hunt: You know so.

00:53:12: Simon Hunt: But which is a good thing and a bad thing.

00:53:14: Simon Hunt: I generally have to drive in to various

00:53:16: Simon Hunt: lakes and ponds and stuff to go fishing.

00:53:18: Simon Hunt: But you know, there is a serious side to it.

00:53:20: Simon Hunt: I think you know it's from my generation.

00:53:24: Simon Hunt: I don't really understand it, because the

00:53:26: Simon Hunt: gaming consoles weren't that good when I

00:53:28: Simon Hunt: was growing up Literally.

00:53:29: Simon Hunt: It was like a white block with a pixel that

00:53:32: Simon Hunt: went from side to side.

00:53:33: Kai Donato: Okay, that's what we're talking about.

00:53:35: Kai Donato: Like ping pong.

00:53:35: Simon Hunt: Yeah, exactly you know, and it was pretty

00:53:38: Simon Hunt: easy to get bored with that.

00:53:39: Simon Hunt: So you play it for half an hour and you go

00:53:40: Simon Hunt: and do something else, whereas now the

00:53:42: Simon Hunt: games are are so good and so consuming,

00:53:46: Simon Hunt: they want you to play it for days.

00:53:48: Simon Hunt: Yeah, you can.

00:53:49: Simon Hunt: Yeah.

00:53:56: Kai Donato: And you get drawn into it.

00:53:56: Kai Donato: And you know it does concern me, you know.

00:53:57: Kai Donato: But luckily your son is fishing on the

00:53:58: Kai Donato: screen.

00:53:59: Kai Donato: He's not fishing Playing like first-person

00:54:02: Kai Donato: shooters, right, that would be something

00:54:03: Kai Donato: you would not show, that this is possible

00:54:06: Kai Donato: in the real life, right, yeah?

00:54:07: Kai Donato: But yeah, I mean, for German people, or

00:54:09: Kai Donato: maybe from different countries, gaming has

00:54:12: Kai Donato: one little upside, more than maybe your son

00:54:15: Kai Donato: is having right now.

00:54:16: Kai Donato: I have many friends and people around me

00:54:20: Kai Donato: that are learning English by playing games,

00:54:22: Kai Donato: because they know when I'm playing on

00:54:24: Kai Donato: servers sometimes I have to listen to

00:54:25: Kai Donato: people talking English and if I'm not able

00:54:27: Kai Donato: to understand what they are saying, then

00:54:29: Kai Donato: it's getting kind of a backlash for me.

00:54:34: Kai Donato: I'm not the best gamer if I cannot

00:54:36: Kai Donato: understand what they're talking about or I

00:54:38: Kai Donato: want to socialize with them, so I have to

00:54:40: Kai Donato: talk to them in English and some games are

00:54:42: Kai Donato: just available in English, so they have to

00:54:44: Kai Donato: learn to know the different words in the

00:54:49: Kai Donato: game.

00:54:50: Kai Donato: And that's some point I'm seeing really

00:54:52: Kai Donato: heavily in the last decade that people are

00:54:55: Kai Donato: saying okay, my son is almost fluently

00:54:57: Kai Donato: speaking english.

00:54:58: Kai Donato: Yeah, one side is like I did, reading in

00:55:01: Kai Donato: blogs and finding solutions for programming

00:55:03: Kai Donato: issues, and most of the things were not in

00:55:05: Kai Donato: german, so I have to read english and it's

00:55:07: Kai Donato: improving constantly.

00:55:08: Kai Donato: Yeah, and the other side is, people are

00:55:10: Kai Donato: really playing games and need to understand

00:55:12: Kai Donato: something that is not translated and they

00:55:14: Kai Donato: are learning English this way.

00:55:17: Kai Donato: I think this is a small amount of things,

00:55:19: Kai Donato: and if you are asking the ministry,

00:55:21: Kai Donato: especially in German areas, then there's

00:55:24: Kai Donato: always the negative point that people might

00:55:26: Kai Donato: get aggressive playing games where you have

00:55:28: Kai Donato: to be aggressive and it affects your

00:55:30: Kai Donato: personal life and your character.

00:55:32: Kai Donato: But there are different opinions about that,

00:55:35: Kai Donato: so let's not You're giving me an idea there.

00:55:38: Simon Hunt: So basically what I need to do is to go and

00:55:40: Simon Hunt: buy a game in Spanish and it's going to

00:55:42: Simon Hunt: improve my son's Spanish for his GCSE.

00:55:45: Kai Donato: But the game should be very interesting to

00:55:47: Kai Donato: keep his attention right.

00:55:49: Kai Donato: The market is very, very big now.

00:55:51: Kai Donato: So if you get the newest GTA in Spanish,

00:55:55: Kai Donato: only in Spanish.

00:55:55: Simon Hunt: What about a Spanish fishing game?

00:55:58: Kai Donato: But yeah, that would be a solution, maybe,

00:56:01: Kai Donato: maybe kind of a book where the solution for

00:56:03: Kai Donato: the game is in with cheat codes or

00:56:05: Kai Donato: something in Arabic.

00:56:06: Kai Donato: Maybe this leads to something new.

00:56:09: Kai Donato: I will not go further with that.

00:56:11: Kai Donato: I have many ideas.

00:56:12: Kai Donato: Let's get to the next category.

00:56:14: Kai Donato: So, like in private are you satisfied with

00:56:17: Kai Donato: your work-life balance?

00:56:18: Kai Donato: And I'm expecting one answer.

00:56:19: Kai Donato: I get almost every time when I'm talking to

00:56:21: Kai Donato: someone, oh, really Interesting.

00:56:23: Kai Donato: Working with Apex.

00:56:24: Simon Hunt: Yeah, no, absolutely not.

00:56:26: Simon Hunt: Am I happy?

00:56:26: Simon Hunt: No, and particularly if you ask my wife,

00:56:28: Simon Hunt: she would be telling you the same yeah,

00:56:31: Simon Hunt: okay.

00:56:32: Simon Hunt: It is a part.

00:56:33: Simon Hunt: I mean I'm looking forward to retirement.

00:56:35: Simon Hunt: I don't want to be working all the way to

00:56:36: Simon Hunt: 170.

00:56:38: Simon Hunt: Sure, I'm running at 100 miles an hour I do.

00:56:42: Simon Hunt: It's a lot of work anyway.

00:56:44: Simon Hunt: But you know Oracle Oracle are great, by

00:56:46: Simon Hunt: the way, at supporting you.

00:56:49: Simon Hunt: They certainly encourage us to take time

00:56:51: Simon Hunt: off to do mindfulness courses and that sort

00:56:54: Simon Hunt: of thing.

00:56:58: Simon Hunt: So this is not a reflection on Oracle at

00:57:00: Simon Hunt: all.

00:57:00: Simon Hunt: I feel that I need to keep up to date with

00:57:03: Simon Hunt: everything that's going on technology-wise

00:57:05: Simon Hunt: in order to do my job properly.

00:57:10: Simon Hunt: I'm also so enthusiastic about what's

00:57:11: Simon Hunt: happening, so I will work into the early

00:57:13: Simon Hunt: hours of the morning building stuff, trying

00:57:16: Simon Hunt: stuff, all these new vectors, ai and all

00:57:19: Simon Hunt: the rest of it so exciting.

00:57:21: Simon Hunt: It is a problem.

00:57:22: Simon Hunt: You go to bed, you try and sleep, your

00:57:25: Simon Hunt: mind's still buzzing, it can affect your

00:57:27: Simon Hunt: sleep, so on and so forth.

00:57:29: Simon Hunt: So it's a constant challenge.

00:57:31: Simon Hunt: It really is to get that work-life balance.

00:57:33: Simon Hunt: I've also got, you know, two children.

00:57:35: Simon Hunt: I want to spend as much time as I can with

00:57:37: Simon Hunt: them and and make it quality time and

00:57:40: Simon Hunt: productive time.

00:57:41: Simon Hunt: Uh, and that's not just about making the

00:57:42: Simon Hunt: time, it's also about, you know, making the

00:57:46: Simon Hunt: headspace for them so that you know you're

00:57:49: Simon Hunt: not still grouchy from work or you're not

00:57:50: Simon Hunt: still tired from work, so that you can have

00:57:53: Simon Hunt: that quality time.

00:57:54: Simon Hunt: And then, of course, spending spending time

00:57:56: Simon Hunt: with my wife is also very important and, uh,

00:57:59: Simon Hunt: yeah, it it it is.

00:58:00: Simon Hunt: It is difficult.

00:58:02: Simon Hunt: I still have other commitments with the

00:58:03: Simon Hunt: army reserves, and that takes also time

00:58:06: Simon Hunt: away at weekends, and I want to continue to

00:58:09: Simon Hunt: do that until my retirement age, uh, which

00:58:12: Simon Hunt: is fast approaching.

00:58:13: Simon Hunt: Come on.

00:58:17: Simon Hunt: It is that old come on always reminding me

00:58:19: Simon Hunt: how old you are games you you used to play

00:58:23: Simon Hunt: back then, and black and white yeah, right

00:58:26: Simon Hunt: and retirement coming on, but yeah, I mean

00:58:29: Simon Hunt: so.

00:58:30: Kai Donato: So, in comparison to the answers I got

00:58:32: Kai Donato: before from apex developers not only from

00:58:34: Kai Donato: or itself, but maybe developers using Apex

00:58:38: Kai Donato: so if you ask my wife or family or whatever

00:58:40: Kai Donato: whoever you want they might not be so happy

00:58:43: Kai Donato: about that that's something that is

00:58:45: Kai Donato: matching.

00:58:46: Kai Donato: But most of the developers are saying, okay,

00:58:48: Kai Donato: apex is my passion.

00:58:49: Simon Hunt: Apex is kind of my life.

00:58:51: Kai Donato: It's crazy to say that, but working eight

00:58:54: Kai Donato: hours a day at least with Apex, and then

00:58:56: Kai Donato: there I'm using so much private time to

00:58:59: Kai Donato: spend on that because I'm very interested

00:59:01: Kai Donato: to how can I use AI to build something for

00:59:03: Kai Donato: my private life, or can I use new features

00:59:06: Kai Donato: in Apex I'm not allowed or I cannot use in

00:59:09: Kai Donato: my professional working career.

00:59:11: Kai Donato: I have to try it out myself in the evenings

00:59:13: Kai Donato: and that's great.

00:59:19: Kai Donato: And that's what some people say.

00:59:20: Kai Donato: I'm really I'm not proud of my work-life

00:59:21: Kai Donato: balance.

00:59:21: Kai Donato: Yeah, but I'm happy with it because I'm

00:59:22: Kai Donato: doing what I love and this is basically,

00:59:23: Kai Donato: most of the time, the answer to that and

00:59:25: Kai Donato: that's and there's, there's a lot to that.

00:59:27: Simon Hunt: So that's true and that's.

00:59:28: Simon Hunt: You know it's addictive, it's part of the

00:59:31: Simon Hunt: problem.

00:59:31: Simon Hunt: You, you do it is a kind of addiction, you

00:59:32: Simon Hunt: know.

00:59:32: Simon Hunt: And although it's addictive, it's part of

00:59:33: Simon Hunt: the problem.

00:59:34: Simon Hunt: You do it is a kind of addiction, you know.

00:59:36: Simon Hunt: And although it's it's productive, you know

00:59:39: Simon Hunt: you've got to kind of got to do it.

00:59:40: Simon Hunt: You know, actually, when you look back,

00:59:43: Simon Hunt: when you reflect, you're missing out on

00:59:45: Simon Hunt: some of the other things.

00:59:46: Kai Donato: I think it's it's so important.

00:59:48: Kai Donato: I look at, my children are growing up so

00:59:50: Kai Donato: fast, you know and I don't want to, I don't

00:59:55: Kai Donato: want to miss out on too much of that.

00:59:56: Kai Donato: Okay, so at least if you're not announcing

00:59:58: Kai Donato: kind of a gamification for my picks I don't

01:00:01: Kai Donato: see the addiction problem that much.

01:00:03: Kai Donato: So if you, there was an idea some years ago,

01:00:06: Kai Donato: so so I have this deep talk on a little bit

01:00:09: Kai Donato: stretches to light, a funny talk.

01:00:11: Kai Donato: But if you have something like oh, you

01:00:14: Kai Donato: created three interactive groups today you

01:00:16: Kai Donato: got one star and so you have like a high

01:00:18: Kai Donato: score list for developers worldwide seeing

01:00:20: Kai Donato: how much progress they made in the Apex

01:00:22: Kai Donato: applications.

01:00:23: Kai Donato: Oh, wow, you saved your faceted search

01:00:26: Kai Donato: query without one issue on the first try.

01:00:29: Kai Donato: Here's one star.

01:00:30: Simon Hunt: Do you remember the?

01:00:31: Simon Hunt: You know, back in the day the discussion

01:00:33: Simon Hunt: forum used to be like that?

01:00:34: Kai Donato: Yeah, do you remember it used the day the

01:00:35: Kai Donato: discussion forum used to be like that.

01:00:36: Simon Hunt: Yeah, do you remember they used to get the

01:00:37: Simon Hunt: different was it medals and different.

01:00:38: Simon Hunt: You could kind of get different colored

01:00:39: Simon Hunt: ones.

01:00:40: Kai Donato: I mean, this is contribution, right, so

01:00:42: Kai Donato: you're getting your reward for doing

01:00:44: Kai Donato: something for other people.

01:00:45: Kai Donato: I still think this is good and this is the

01:00:49: Kai Donato: contributing if you're doing something for

01:00:50: Kai Donato: the community.

01:00:51: Kai Donato: It could be blog entries, it could be

01:00:53: Kai Donato: forums, it could be a podcast.

01:00:55: Kai Donato: Maybe You're getting points and getting

01:00:57: Kai Donato: your reward and helping other people.

01:00:59: Kai Donato: But if you're alone working on Apex, maybe

01:01:01: Kai Donato: a small team at a customer's site or at a

01:01:04: Kai Donato: company's site and they're doing the

01:01:05: Kai Donato: gamification thing and get some challenge

01:01:08: Kai Donato: working on.

01:01:09: Kai Donato: Maybe there's some time in the future for

01:01:10: Kai Donato: people.

01:01:11: Simon Hunt: Maybe you could do a third-party extension.

01:01:13: Simon Hunt: It'd be the gamification of Apex.

01:01:15: Kai Donato: Oh, wow.

01:01:16: Kai Donato: And then I do like DLC stuff that you can

01:01:19: Kai Donato: pay for in-game or in Apex purchases.

01:01:23: Kai Donato: Oh, I'm going to cut that out of this

01:01:24: Kai Donato: episode and next month you will see

01:01:26: Kai Donato: something in this direction.

01:01:28: Kai Donato: Yeah, all right.

01:01:29: Kai Donato: Okay, so another question from the

01:01:31: Kai Donato: in-private part what role does your private

01:01:33: Kai Donato: environment play in your job?

01:01:34: Kai Donato: So are you surrounded by geeks, or is it

01:01:38: Kai Donato: the complete opposite?

01:01:40: Kai Donato: So in work life, you're working just with

01:01:42: Kai Donato: geeks?

01:01:42: Kai Donato: obviously, because they're Apex developers,

01:01:44: Kai Donato: database developers Is it in your private

01:01:46: Kai Donato: life that you are having also geeks around

01:01:50: Kai Donato: you, or are you completely separating to

01:01:52: Kai Donato: say, okay, I don't want to talk about work,

01:01:54: Kai Donato: programming, language, it stuff in my

01:01:56: Kai Donato: private time?

01:01:57: Simon Hunt: Yeah, it's a good question.

01:01:59: Simon Hunt: So generally not, I would say.

01:02:01: Simon Hunt: But I do have an inner geek.

01:02:05: Kai Donato: Inner circle Inner circle, okay.

01:02:10: Simon Hunt: So that I can dive into that.

01:02:12: Simon Hunt: Yeah, but generally not so.

01:02:13: Simon Hunt: And I've got a number of social networks.

01:02:15: Simon Hunt: I'm fortunate enough to live in a beautiful

01:02:16: Simon Hunt: village, uh, and we've got two pubs, We've

01:02:20: Simon Hunt: got a cricket pitch, it's all very English

01:02:23: Simon Hunt: country, and there's a wonderful community

01:02:26: Simon Hunt: in the in the village.

01:02:27: Simon Hunt: And, you know, every Friday evening, or

01:02:29: Simon Hunt: Friday afternoon, should I say, when I

01:02:31: Simon Hunt: finish work, I go to the pub and I meet the

01:02:34: Simon Hunt: same group every week of 80 year olds they

01:02:39: Simon Hunt: are between 80 and 80.

01:02:42: Simon Hunt: I think the oldest is about 86, you know,

01:02:45: Simon Hunt: and and they're great, they're just lovely,

01:02:48: Simon Hunt: and they are very interested in what I've

01:02:50: Simon Hunt: been doing, where I'm traveling, and

01:02:52: Simon Hunt: listening to my stories, but then they tell

01:02:54: Simon Hunt: me their stories and, what's great I know

01:02:56: Simon Hunt: they're not going to thank me for saying

01:02:58: Simon Hunt: this They'll often tell me the same story

01:03:00: Simon Hunt: over and over again.

01:03:02: Kai Donato: You know what you're expecting, right?

01:03:03: Kai Donato: So your plan is stop working on Friday

01:03:05: Kai Donato: saying, okay, I need to clear my mind now I

01:03:07: Kai Donato: need to come down and then, all right, I'm

01:03:09: Kai Donato: going to the pub and they will tell me the

01:03:11: Kai Donato: story from the wall, right?

01:03:12: Simon Hunt: Exactly.

01:03:12: Simon Hunt: They'll tell me the same story.

01:03:14: Simon Hunt: It's so, it's so funny.

01:03:15: Simon Hunt: I mean, you can get.

01:03:16: Kai Donato: You can get that prepared with prepared

01:03:18: Kai Donato: questions, right?

01:03:19: Kai Donato: I said how was it like this?

01:03:21: Kai Donato: So did you do that?

01:03:22: Kai Donato: And they said oh nice.

01:03:23: Kai Donato: They asked yeah, exactly, that is nice

01:03:26: Kai Donato: thing.

01:03:34: Simon Hunt: It's, it's uh, a charming thing to do, and

01:03:35: Simon Hunt: I'm grateful it's beneficial for them too,

01:03:36: Simon Hunt: right?

01:03:36: Simon Hunt: So I hope so, you know it's certainly for

01:03:39: Simon Hunt: them to get together, you know I mean sadly.

01:03:42: Simon Hunt: I mean, I lost my father this year, which

01:03:44: Simon Hunt: was, which was sad so, and I kind of missed

01:03:47: Simon Hunt: that kind of engagement with you know, the

01:03:51: Simon Hunt: sort of I don't know what is now the older

01:03:53: Simon Hunt: generation, I will be the older generation

01:03:54: Simon Hunt: soon Go on again, Simon.

01:03:57: Simon Hunt: But they're still there, you know, and

01:03:58: Simon Hunt: they've got some great stories.

01:04:00: Simon Hunt: They really have.

01:04:01: Kai Donato: Sometimes different stories, but most of

01:04:04: Kai Donato: the time it's the same story.

01:04:06: Kai Donato: But it's great, awesome, all right.

01:04:09: Kai Donato: Last category is consumption.

01:04:11: Kai Donato: So how do you deal with the growing flood

01:04:13: Kai Donato: of information via various channels?

01:04:16: Kai Donato: So news informations are coming more and

01:04:17: Kai Donato: more push notifications on the phone and

01:04:20: Kai Donato: what are you doing against?

01:04:21: Kai Donato: It or are you just living with it.

01:04:22: Kai Donato: It's hideous isn't it?

01:04:23: Simon Hunt: I mean, I was looking at what was it?

01:04:25: Simon Hunt: Tiktok, my goodness me, you know.

01:04:28: Simon Hunt: And I'm watching and thinking, oh this is,

01:04:29: Simon Hunt: you know, flicking through.

01:04:31: Simon Hunt: And I looked at my watch and it was like

01:04:32: Simon Hunt: two hours had gone and I was like right,

01:04:35: Simon Hunt: get rid of this, it's just highly addicted.

01:04:44: Kai Donato: I cannot imagine that no one I heard the

01:04:45: Kai Donato: story so often, even if, even if, even in

01:04:46: Kai Donato: this podcast and also on the street talking

01:04:47: Kai Donato: to people.

01:04:48: Kai Donato: It's always the same like I tried it and I

01:04:51: Kai Donato: never got my time back for that.

01:04:52: Kai Donato: I don't know how many videos I just

01:04:54: Kai Donato: scrolled through.

01:04:55: Simon Hunt: If I could go back to the question you

01:04:56: Simon Hunt: asked me earlier about which technology to

01:04:58: Simon Hunt: get rid?

01:04:58: Kai Donato: of.

01:04:58: Simon Hunt: Actually, that's a much better one, it's

01:05:00: Simon Hunt: just that it's that addictive force feed of

01:05:03: Simon Hunt: information and then, as you start to

01:05:07: Simon Hunt: choose what you like, the algorithms then

01:05:09: Simon Hunt: start feeding you more of the same.

01:05:11: Simon Hunt: So you just get in this reinforced

01:05:13: Simon Hunt: narrative, which has to be biased right.

01:05:14: Simon Hunt: Then start feeding you more of the same.

01:05:14: Simon Hunt: So you just get in this reinforced

01:05:15: Simon Hunt: narrative, which is I has to be biased,

01:05:16: Simon Hunt: right, you know it's your own bias that's

01:05:18: Simon Hunt: coming through.

01:05:19: Simon Hunt: I think it's deeply concerning, but now you

01:05:23: Simon Hunt: can install tick tock youtube and blue sky

01:05:26: Simon Hunt: and so on and just follow devs on tape we

01:05:28: Simon Hunt: are on all those platforms and then you can

01:05:30: Simon Hunt: watch the 20 seconds or one minute videos

01:05:33: Simon Hunt: all the time and you lose your time.

01:05:35: Kai Donato: But but it's a for good way and just a

01:05:37: Kai Donato: little advertisement for all listeners.

01:05:38: Kai Donato: Please follow us on different platforms

01:05:40: Kai Donato: Then you can see some faces to the voices

01:05:42: Kai Donato: you're hearing every two weeks here.

01:05:45: Kai Donato: We're sitting here in the amusement park,

01:05:47: Kai Donato: but I have brought some cameras with me and

01:05:49: Kai Donato: you can see it on the social media

01:05:51: Kai Donato: platforms.

01:05:51: Kai Donato: Simon Hunt, Thank you very much for joining

01:05:53: Kai Donato: me.

01:05:53: Kai Donato: It was a pleasure to talk to you and get

01:05:55: Kai Donato: the information almost New features and

01:05:57: Kai Donato: then unannounced stuff.

01:06:03: Kai Donato: But I guess I have to dig deeper on that

01:06:05: Kai Donato: and we might have a second challenge in the

01:06:06: Kai Donato: future.

01:06:07: Simon Hunt: Thank you for joining me, Simon Hunt.

01:06:08: Simon Hunt: Thank you.

01:06:09: Kai Donato: I hope you're having a great conference

01:06:11: Kai Donato: Simon Hunt.

01:06:12: Simon Hunt: Oh, it's a, it's a amazing conference.

01:06:14: Simon Hunt: I mean I'm going to go explore this

01:06:16: Simon Hunt: afternoon.

01:06:17: Kai Donato: You will do no roller coasters.

01:06:18: Simon Hunt: No roller coasters, just conference

01:06:19: Simon Hunt: sessions.

01:06:20: Kai Donato: Yeah, have a great time.

01:06:22: Kai Donato: Thank you, bye, bye.