Dieser Podcast ist eine initiative der Development Community des DOAG e.V.

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

Shownotes

Simon Hunt, head of Product Management for Oracle APEX, joins us to share his remarkable journey from a Portsmouth school teacher to a leading role at Oracle. With a background that includes pivotal experiences at the UK Ministry of Defence, Simon's career took a defining turn from Java to Oracle APEX. His firsthand insights reveal the transformative power of APEX in the public sector, overcoming initial skepticism to become a cornerstone in web application development. Our conversation explores the growth of Oracle APEX and Simon's engineering-rooted perspective on the evolution of programming languages and technologies.

AI is an exciting frontier, and Simon is setting his sights on it as he nears retirement, hoping to innovate within the Oracle APEX ecosystem. We explore the potential for AI to revolutionize user interfaces, bringing chat-based interactions and advanced developer tools to the fore. Amid discussions on tech innovation, Simon shares a light-hearted anecdote about a rollercoaster ride that prompted reflections on age and the thrill-seeking spirit. As Oracle APEX positions itself at the cutting edge, we envision a future rich with AI-driven features that promise to enhance both user and developer experiences.

From the intricacies of automation testing to the broader implications of AI integration, the episode sheds light on the continuous evolution of Oracle APEX in cloud services. We address the challenges and opportunities that come with maintaining a healthy work-life balance in tech careers while embracing rapid technological advancements. The importance of community engagement and the joy of personal connections are underscored through Simon's charming village life and interactions with his local community. Join us for a conversation that looks ahead to the future of Oracle APEX while celebrating its past and present achievements.

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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.

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