Introduction
This year APEX World 2023 was again at the KNVB Campus, home of Football (or should I say soccer) in the Netherlands. As always this was a landmark event for Oracle Application Express (APEX) developers, with an an array of enlightening sessions, by some of the most renowned experts in the field. This year was my first time ever as a presenter at APEX world. This blog post will summarise the key takeaways from my sessions at APEX World 2023.
I delivered two sessions at the conference, each shedding light on different aspects of Oracle APEX and web development. Here’s a summary of the insights shared during each session:
Session 1: Lets talk chatbots: How to integrate Oracle Digital Assistant into APEX
In this session, I delved into the integration of Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) in APEX. Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) is Oracle’s enterprise solution for Chatbots. It has been around for a while and has evolved into one of the most advanced chatbot solutions currently available. There are many ways to use it. One of them is to integrate ODA with Oracle APEX. In this session you will learn fundamental concepts of ODA, how to setup a Digital Assistant and finally how you can add this DA to an APEX application. I highlighted some of the key characteristics of ODA and explained how to develop a Digital Assistant. I started with some of the basic concepts of ODA before going into the key integration concepts. All of this was backed by real live demo’s and in the end I shared some advanced features as take aways.
Session 2: A(bsolutely) I(nsane) : Using ChatGPT to build an APEX application
In his second session, I focused on ChatGPT. I showed how you can use ChatGPT to realise an APEX application. Due to big queue at the door of the initial presentationroom, this session was moved to the keynote room last minute.
I showed the ChatGPT 3.5 dialog and asked if it could help me to build an APEX application. It came up with a list of instructions to build the desired application in APEX, based on Dept and Emp. I read the instructions with the audience and tried it as best as I could. Unfortunately the differences between the APEX versions can sometimes get in the way. The conclusion was that you need to be even more knowledgeable in order to build an application.
Next I used version 4 of ChatGPT to try the same. This already showed a huge improvement. For example, ChatGPT itself already reported that it was a master detail and what kind of pages should be created for it in APEX. With ChatGPT 3.5, this was never suggested and I should have figured out myself.
Conclusion
My first time ever sessions at APEX World where big fun. Especially the one on ChatGPT was highly interactive and I think the audience liked my approach. Hope to be back next time with some more presentations.
