The State of Oracle APEX Development

Transcription

1 The State of Oracle APEX Development 2018

2 Table of Contents 3 Executive Summary 4 Key Findings 5 Demographics 10 Let s talk APEX! 18 Developing with APEX 21 From the community

3 Executive Summary The world of low-code software development is fragmented, with many vendors and tools available, each having their unique strengths and weaknesses. For those who are at the start of their careers, or for the developers who are looking at alternative technology stacks to switch to without starting from zero, it can be a daunting task to pick the right technology to specialize in. This report represents our effort to provide an overview for one such development tool - Oracle Application Express (or APEX) - and debunk some of the myths surrounding it. We aim to provide an overview into how developers around the world are using the features and functionality provided by Oracle APEX to tackle modern challenges and meet customer requirements. To achieve this we set out with the following questions in mind: What information resources are valued the most by the community? What s a good starting point for learning APEX? What applications are typically created with Oracle APEX and who are they for? What do developers use to improve their application development experience and boost productivity? What development technologies have they used before APEX? What would they choose as an alternative? 3

4 Key Findings Oracle skills are still in demand Standard is good, Custom is better The demand for skilled developers proficient in using Oracle technologies continues to grow. A quarter of all survey participants have said that within their organizations the Oracle development team has increased in size within the last 12 months. It is easy to extend the functionality provided by Oracle APEX by either writing code or by using free / commercial plugins. 89% of respondents declared they bring custom functionality in their projects, rather than using only the standard APEX features. Mixed developer background A community-oriented approach APEX caters to wide spectrum of developers. One third of those who took the survey and are currently using APEX reported having worked with a non-oracle technology before making the switch to APEX. The community surrounding Oracle APEX is very active. This is also highlighted by the top 3 sources used by survey respondents to keep up to date with what s new in APEX: personal blogs, Twitter and apex.world. High developer satisfaction levels Backlogs highlight demand In addition of being long term APEX users, the vast majority of developers report high or very high satisfaction levels with the tool s speed and overall development experience. Only 9% of those surveyed declared that they do not have a backlog. Most developers (60%) have stated that they currently have between 2-5 applications on their backlog. 4

5 Demographics Survey respondents were developers, IT managers and other professionals who are currently working with Oracle APEX and have agreed to share their feedback about using this development tool to achieve personal and/or business goals. Main job function The list below reflects what respondents identified as their main job role. Back End Developer 77% Front End Developer 70% System Architect 54% DBA Freelance Developer IT Manager 24% 24% 29% Figure 1: Main job role Survey participants indicated that they are also fulfilling other job roles than the ones provided as standard answers in the questionnaire. These choices have been highlighted in the table to the right. Tech Lead 2% IT Consultant 2% Project Manager 1% DB Architect / Designer < 1% Data Engineer < 1% CTO < 1% IT Manager < 1% System Analyst < 1% UX Designer < 1% BI Consultant < 1% Business Analyst < 1% Sales Consultant < 1% Trainer < 1% Technical writer < 1% Company owner < 1% Table 1: Other job functions 5

6 Developer seniority 65% When asked about their professional experience 2 out of every 3 survey respondents declared having more than 10 years of work experience as a software developer. 6% 29% This is further confirmed by looking at the age group distribution graphic, where one third of survey respondents fall into the age group, while approximately another third fall into the age group. < 2 years 2-10 years > 10 years Figure 2: Declared years of work experience 36% 32% 19% 11% 2% Figure 3: Age distribution 6

7 First APEX version used The majority of today s APEX developers got acquainted with Oracle APEX early on - version 4.x or earlier. Almost one third reported having started their journey with APEX 3.x. Figure 4: The first software version that survey participants reportedly began working with (%) Organization size One third of those who took the survey are working in organizations with more than 1000 employees, while almost a quarter of respondents reported working in organizations with less than 10 employees. > 1000 empl. 36% empl. 14% empl. 14% empl. 13% < 10 empl. 23% Figure 5: Organization size 7

8 Geographical distribution Europe accounted for 44% of all survey responses. Almost one third of organizations have headquarters in North America, followed by Asia (11%) and Central & South America (6%), with the remainder spread across the other regions of the world. Figure 6: Geographical distribution Industries Figure 7: Industries 21% IT / Software Development 13% Banking & Finance 10% Public Administration 9% Healthcare, Life Sciences 6% Transport & Logistics 6% Consumer Goods, Retail 5% Education 5% Training & Consulting 3% Energy, Oil & Gas 3% Construction 3% Utilities 2% Manufacturing 2% Insurance 2% Services 2% Automotive 2% Telecom 1% Marketing, Media & Publishing 1% Legal, Law Enforcement 1% NGO <1% Hospitality <1% Sports 8

9 Development teams within organizations 2 out of every 5 companies report having a team of less than 5 Oracle developers, while teams of more than 50 Oracle developers can be found in approximately 1 out of every 6 organizations. 41% 17% 16% 17% 9% < 5 dev dev dev dev. > 50 dev. Figure 8: The Oracle development team size within the surveyed organizations Developer headcount Oracle skills are still in demand. A quarter of respondents reported that compared to a year before, the number of Oracle developers employed by their respective organizations has increased. Only 12% reported a decline in developer headcount. 12% 10% 54% 24% Higher Same Lower I don't know Figure 9: Developer headcount 9

10 Let s talk APEX! When asked about their favorite Oracle APEX feature / component, more than a quarter of users picked the Interactive Report. A top 3 of the most appreciated APEX features / components by the community also includes the Interactive Grid and, on equal percentages, for the 3 rd place: Dynamic Actions and APEX s low-code development capabilities. Interactive Report 28% Interactive Grid 18% Low code / RAD tool 8% Dynamic Actions 8% Page Designer 7% Universal Theme 6% Figure 10: Favorite component / feature of APEX Other features / functionality mentioned by the respondents include: PL/SQL-based development 5% Cloud-based tool 5% JET Charts 4% Plugins 2% Classic Report 2% Setup wizards 2% Quick SQL 1% LOVs 1% SQL Workshop 1% APIs 1% Table 2: Other APEX features 10

11 Sources of information A vast majority of developers (three quarters) prefer reading blog articles when it comes to staying up to date with the latest improvements brought to Oracle APEX. apex.world and Twitter (using the official Oracle APEX Twitter hashtag) - who are community-based channels - come in second and third places. 69% 74% 56% 59% 34% 17% Oracle website apex.world Conferences Books Blog articles #orclapex Figure 11: Main sources of information for the APEX community Before APEX... Nearly one third of today s Oracle APEX developers have a non-oracle background, making APEX their first contact with the Oracle technology stack. 30% 70% Oracle Non-Oracle Figure 12: Oracle vs. Non-Oracle background 11

12 Taking a closer look at the developers who have an Oracle background - meaning that they have a level of proficiency in using other technologies provided by Oracle - roughly one third have used Oracle Forms in the past. Forms & Reports 37% PL/SQL Java 8% 9% APEX* 6% SQL Developer ADF 3% 4% Oracle Discoverer OAF Oracle Portal OWA Webtools 1% 1% 1% 1% Figure 13: Technologies used prior to APEX by developers with a declared Oracle background * the above graph also includes those survey respondents who have indicated that they made a career change to become developers and have picked Oracle APEX as the tool to work with in their new roles. These answers have been categorized under the APEX* label. When considering those who have a non-oracle background the results were a little more evenly distributed with Visual Basic,.NET and PHP being the top 3 technologies from which respondents switched to APEX. Visual Basic 10%.NET 5% PHP 4% MS Access 3% Javascript C# or C++ Delphi PowerBuilder 2% 2% 2% 2% Visual FoxPro Perl 1% 1% Figure 14: Technologies used prior to APEX by developers with a declared non-oracle background 12

13 What if APEX did not exist? We asked our survey participants to imagine that Oracle APEX did/does not exist, so what other tools / development technologies would they consider using..net 15% Java 14% Oracle Forms 11% PHP 8% ADF Angular 6% 6% React 5% Oracle JET 4% Javascript Node.js 3% 3% Figure 15: Technologies that developers would choose as alternatives to Oracle APEX. Who do you build apps for? The type of applications developed with Oracle APEX seem to predominantly serve for an organization s internal use, rather than as customer-facing apps. 40% 35% 19% 4% 2% Customers Internal use Internal use & Customers Internal use, Customers & Personal use Personal use Figure 16: General use case for apps developed with APEX 13

14 Which Oracle APEX versions are used currently? More than half of respondents (56%) are working with one of the last two major releases of Oracle APEX and three quarters (76%) of those surveyed have reported that they are using the latest important release (18.x). 76% 56% 17% 0% 2% 2.x 3.x 4.x 5.x 18.x Figure 17: Oracle APEX versions currently being used by developers Single vs. Multi-version usage A majority of APEX developers (58%) have reported that they are currently working with only one software version of Oracle APEX. 3 or more versions 8% 2 versions 34% 1 version 58% Figure 18: Single vs. Multi-version usage 14

15 Single version APEX users Out of those respondents who indicated that they re working with just one version of APEX approximately two thirds (64%) have said that they use the latest important release. 64% 30% 0% 1% 5% 2.x 3.x 4.x 5.x 18.x Figure 19: Single version usage - popular APEX versions Multi-version APEX users When it comes to the developers who work with multiple versions of Oracle APEX the chart below illustrates which APEX versions they are currently using. 5.x & 18.x 65% 4.x, 5.x & 18.x 17% 4.x & 18.x 7% 4.x & 5.x 6% 3.x, 4.x, 5.x & 18.x 2% 3.x, 4.x & 5.x 2% 3.x & 18.x 1% 3.x & 4.x 1% Figure 20: Multi-version usage - popular APEX versions 15

16 Most frequently used skills An Oracle APEX developer uses in their day-to-day work multiple technologies to solve user requirements. The most frequently used skills have been highlighted below: 95% 98% 70% 60% 61% SQL PL/SQL JavaScript CSS HTML Figure 21: Frequently used skills for Oracle APEX developers Apps deployed to production in the last 12 months 55% of those surveyed said that in the past year they have deployed less than 5 applications developed with Oracle APEX. Only 16% of developers indicated that they ve released 10 or more applications within the last 12 months. 16% < 5 APEX apps 29% 55% 5-10 APEX apps > 10 APEX apps Figure 22: Apps deployed to production in the past 12 months that were developed with APEX 16

17 Just how happy are developers with Oracle APEX? A large majority of developers have declared that they are satisfied or very satisfied with APEX as a development tool, in terms of both overall development experience and development speed. 2% 1% 3% 2% 5% 8% Very dissatisfied Slightly dissatisfied Neither satisfied or dissatisfied Somewhat satisfied 24% 18% Very satisfied 66% 71% Overall experience Development speed Figure 23: Satisfaction levels for both overall experience and development speed of Oracle APEX. 17

18 Developing with APEX Average time need to develop & deploy an APEX app Due to its rapid application development capabilities, a cumulated 75% of survey respondents have indicated that, on average, the time needed to develop and deploy a typical APEX application is less than three months. 45% Figure 24: The average time, as reported by survey participants, to develop & deploy a typical APEX application 30% 11% 5% 1% 8% <1 month 1-3 months 3-6 months 6-12 months > 12 months N/A Note: This type of measurement can be seen as subjective since it does not factor in other variables such as: the application s complexity, the developer s proficiency, size of the team working on the app etc. App development backlogs Backlogs are not going away any time soon. 3 out of 5 APEX developers reportedly have between 2 5 applications on their backlog. 60% Figure 25: The current number of apps found in a developer s backlog 10% 9% 12% 9% 1 app 2-5 apps 6-10 apps > 10 apps No backlog 18

19 Functionality: Standard vs Customization One of the advantages provided by the architecture of APEX itself is having the option of extending its standard functionality by either writing code or using plugins. When asked about whether they use only the standard features provided by APEX or actively seek to add new functionality, most developers indicated the latter as their preferred choice. 11% 89% Standard Custom Figure 26: APEX standard vs. custom functionality preference Custom code, Plugins or Both Going a step further and looking at the ways in which developers prefer to add new functionality to APEX, 55% have said that they prefer to use a combination of writing code and using plugins (free or commercially supported). 18% 11% 89% 16% Standard Write code Use plugins 55% Code & Plugins Figure 27: How developers prefer to extend the standard functionality of APEX 19

20 Cloud adoption As APEX is a web-based tool, it is important to understand to what extent is the cloud being used by our respondents organizations. As seen below, 1 of every 3 companies are running 50% or less of all their systems in the cloud. This is nearly twice as much as those who said that between % of their systems run in the cloud. 31% 29% 15% 14% 11% We run % in the cloud We run less than 50% in the cloud Not now, but plan to < 12 months No plans for the next 12 months N / A Figure 28: Cloud usage within the surveyed organizations 20

21 From the community We reserved the last part of this report for the feedback received from survey respondents. This is a brief overview of what some community members have to say about working with APEX:

22 This report is a community-focused project produced by FOEX. For other community-related resources please visit