Re: HTML DB

[Quoted] Frank van Bortel wrote:

> Lee wrote:
>
>> I suppose this is the right place to bring up HTML DB (its a "tool",
>> no? )
>>
>> Has anybody started using it? Whats the recommended way to break the
>> ice learning how to build applications with it.?
>

        <SNIP>

>>
> Forget Forms.

[Quoted] OK, I understand that the http protocol would make certain "Sql Forms" - like events impossible to deal with....for exmpkle:the server doesnt know when focus goes in or out of client side forms, it only "knows" when you submit a form or follow a link. But still, poking around the pre built "demo" applications available through marvel.oracle.com makes is seem as if some "forms" events are handled.....attach a pl/sql block before or after a query is executed looks as if its supported. I could be way wrong of course, thats the problem. I cant tell for sure what-all is going on with HTMLDB

>
> Start learning HTML (you don't say whether you have that skill...).
> You know PL/SQL; read up on the htp and htf procedures and functions.

[Quoted] There's always more to know of course, but I've used the "pl/sql gateway" , i.e.Apache with mod_plsql to create smallish applications. Create a DAD, create stored procedures using htp and htf etc. I've even written a few pl/sql "pages",,,,,
html with pls/sql used as an ebedded scripting language, then send the source through "loadpls" etc, to turn it into a stored procedure, but only to play with.

>
> Read a book about pl/sql and html; Sten Vesterli's 'Oracle 101
> Web Applications' is one I like for the PL/SQL stuff and HTML.
> There are some examples and packages to be downloaded from his
> site. The book is not for sale anymore, if I'm correctly informed.

[Quoted] Oh I'm shameless, I'll steal good ideas from anywhere. Thanx for the pointer.

>
> Once you get the feel of that, turn to HTMLDB.

[Quoted] Raring to go, but how do you operationalize that. How do I start to "turn to HTMLDB" ?

> You'll see it's
> nothing else than a bunch of packages, like Sten Vesterli's,
> packed together, with a GUI added.

[Quoted] Can we get to see the pl/sql code for the packages somewhere, or is that Oracle condifential? Is the interface exposed, if not the implementation details?

 There must be some underlying data model for holding the data that describes an application. Presumably the GUI helps the end user set the data into the model, and then the packages execute using data strored in the model to render the application HTML.

Can we get to see the model , (or have bits of it explained to us) or is that also a company secret?

 My experience has been that if I understand the underlying data model for a given application, the code sort of writes itself or that understanding somebody else's code written to be driven from that model is usually straightforward. If I dont understand the data model going in, following the code is a mother bear and usually involves trying to "reverse engineer" the model based on the code I'm looking at. Frustrating! .

>
> You'll need your PL/SQl programming skills again :)

[Quoted] Do you mean for creating new applications or for reading internal  HTMLDB code to help understand how it does what it does?

Surely the people who designed the tool (he says, hoping for the best but fearing the worst) have provided a path by which the ordinary bear can learn to use the tool in finite time, starting from some "known" set of skills.

So...here I am, one modal ursine, knowing (to some extent) html and pl/sq, with htp and htf among various other arcana. Where's the path?   Received on Sun Jan 09 2005 - 22:53:07 CET