After a busy summer, we are finally reporting back on our Kscope19 experience. As usual, from a technical standpoint, it did not disappoint. This is primarily because of Oracle’s announcement of APEX as the development platform for its new Autonomous Database cloud. This brought real excitement about the future of APEX and was felt throughout the event. We can now expect Oracle Database Users of all horizons to turn to APEX for their development needs. This is great news for the Oracle APEX community!
This year, I was particularly pleased to see Insum show off its Database expertise. We had a total of 7 presentations in that category alone! I was also proud to see the results of a year’s work by Vincent Morneau on the issue of version control with APEX. launched during our Vendor presentation, APEXcl, allows APEX users to improve APEX application version control by being able to export in capabilities file-based standard system users normally do. Thanks to some amazing comments about the product, Vincent is now back to work implementing some very interesting improvements. Stay tuned for more…
As the APEX track sponsor, we were also very proud to see that the community is still very much alive. Tons of great content and new features announced for APEX 19.2. More proof that the APEX team is still working very actively on improving the tool.
A quick word to congratulate Luc Demanche for his first experience as a speaker and Adrian Png for his ACE nomination and OCI certification.
I’m delighted with the Insum team’s contribution to Kscope19. Here below is their take on it. We look forward to seeing you in Boston next year.
Francis Mignault
Monty Latiolais
Kscope19 must continue to be a leading event
Christopher Jackson
As a newbie, I found Kscope19 to be a great opportunity to meet a large cross-section of the worldwide APEX community. The conference attendees were very friendly and excited to share how they were using APEX in their organizations. As part of the Insum business development team, I was able to spend a lot of time at the Insum booth and speak with many APEX aficionados, many of whom were already Insum clients. There was elevated enthusiasm for the APEX platform and a comfortable peer to peer dynamic among the conference attendees. In fact, it felt a bit like a family reunion at times. Another real highlight was the unveiling of APEXcl, the version control tool developed by Insum. All in all, it was a great pleasure and privilege to live the Kscope experience as part of the Insum team.
Hayden Hudson
Kscope is the professional highlight of my year. I often work remotely so many of my meaningful work relationships are primarily online. Kscope is a rewarding opportunity to catch up with friends who might otherwise be on the opposite side of the planet. This year, in particular, was marked by the 1st convening of the fab.earth team, for which I’m a volunteer. This team joins developers from as far as Australia, Europe, Africa and, of course, North America. In other news, this is my 3rd time presenting at Kscope and I feel myself maturing as a presenter – I was very confident in my material ‘What test automation software is right for me?’ and got some really great audience participation. Thanks to all attendees.
Adrian Png
There’s always something new to be announced at Kscope. This year, the biggest announcement came to a combined audience of APEX developers and Database professionals: Oracle Application Express now comes included with the Autonomous Database cloud service. This is a significant positional change for APEX as it takes center stage in Oracle’s current flagship product. Alongside many enterprise features like a pluggable/extensible authentication framework, we can only see more upside to adoption in the near future.
Besides being a launchpad for Oracle, Kscope is also the event to hear about new and upcoming technologies. This year, I am honored to be involved in the first-ever Emerging Technology track. As part of the abstract selection committee, it was mind-opening to read the many excellent submissions from various industrial domains and the revolutionary ideas to solve hard problems. The key take-home message from the track’s Unconference: keep learning or risk becoming a dinosaur! And the best place to stay in touch, involved and alive? See you next year at Kscope20!”
Luc Demanche
This was my first Kscope as an Insum employee. It was also my first time ever as a presenter at a conference, so it involved a lot of stress and new experiences. In general, the sessions were very informative with highly technical content, which was great. I also had the chance to be at the booth and have in-person discussions with clients that I’d been talking over the phone with for the last year and a half. It is so nice to be able to put a face to a name. I really think these events are a great opportunity to meet people and to also strengthen relationships with our clients. Speaking of strengthening relationships, I really appreciated the Insum event on Tuesday night, where we met our clients and friends around beer and food; this a great way to show how important they are. In the end, I also realized that Insum was very, very well known in the APEX community. It made me proud to be part of it.
Richard Soule
I’ve been working with Oracle for more than 20 years and have participated in many Oracle conferences. Without a doubt, Kscope is by far the best conference. The sense of community and the ability to learn real, practical skills is unparalleled. In addition, the ability to sit down and have actual conversations with the strategic influencers and developers of Oracle technology makes Kscope fundamentally different from other conferences. I’ll continue to go to Kscope each year because of the unique experience that it provides.
David Schleis
Kscope19 was another outstanding conference put on by ODTUG and a large number of volunteers. The attendance seemed down from the last time ODTUG visited Seattle in 2014, but the convention center was still a very busy place. Although my sessions were not heavily attended, they were well received. Admittedly, pushing SQL Developer Data Modeler beyond its limits is, shall we say, a “boutique” type of topic.
While I always enjoy presenting, this year a real highlight was the time I spent at the Insum booth talking with attendees after the announcement of APEXcl. This product alleviates many of the issues surrounding versioning, code review, source control, and overall product quality when dealing with an APEX project’s lifecycle. Based on their stories and their questions, these are issues that had clearly frustrated attendees in the past. It was heartening to be able to commiserate with them about these inherent limitations, and then be able to explain how APEXcl offers a straightforward, simple solution to these problems. Kscope19 marks my twenty-first ODTUG conference, but more importantly my fourth as a member of the Insum Team. Being a part of this organization brings a sense of purpose and level of pride unmatched in those prior years.
Vincent Morneau
Kscope is always a blast, and this year did not disappoint. As a speaker for multiple sessions, finding the time to connect with attendees while preparing for my own talks is a challenging task, but one thing I noticed at Kscope19 is that people were particularly interested in emerging technologies and talks that take you out of your comfort zone. JavaScript was omnipresent in many APEX talks, and I take that as a sign of good health for the future of the technology and the community around Oracle and APEX. Stay fresh in technology! And Kscope is the place to be.
Jorge Rimblas
You may have heard that Kscope is a great conference. In my case, this year, I’m more biased than most. Kscope19 was my second and last year on the Conference Committee. Due to term limits I will now step aside and let others take a stab at putting together the conference. I served as Content Chair for the APEX, Database, and Emerging Tech tracks. As such, I was closely involved in the content selection and with a vested interest in making sure this was the high quality that we’ve all come to expect. I admit, after the Kscope19 closing ceremony I felt a big sad void in my gut. You see, almost every week, from Kscope to Kscope, I’ve been talking about and planning the next conference with a fabulous team of volunteers. That said, I was also pretty content and satisfied. Yes, there are always things that could be better. There’s no sense in second-guessing, better look forward. So, for my highlights, I don’t think I could possibly list them in the order of relevance or address them all. Bear with me as I mention just a handful and let it flows like a stream of thought.
Kscope19 Collaborations
It was exciting to collaborate with two great individuals. I had the joint session “Maze Runner: The cure for APEX confusion” with Jackie McIlroy. I love this session as Jackie and I want it to become a living reference for people that are new to APEX. However, even those that have been around for a while will find it useful. I also got to present with Tim German on the Essbase track and build, on the fly, and APEX app to serve as an Essbase administration utility on the Essbase Cloud using APEX Web Source Modules and fantastic out of the box REST support. It was very rewarding to see people’s expressions on what was possible with APEX.
It brought me a lot of joy to see Vincent’s latest brainchild, APEXcl, finally out in the wild. Months before Kscope19 and the big reveal, I had a chance to do some testing and give feedback, but it’s a relief to be able to talk about it and show it off. I use the tool often, sometimes daily, and after being involved with APEX for so many years, it’s a refreshing and much-needed addition to my workflow.
Since I work remotely, it was also a highlight to spend in-person quality time with my teammates.
And what do you know, I even got to learn a lot of new things attending several sessions. I also got inspired by others and their creative capability. You can expect Boston will be a landmark event given the location. I can’t wait to be there next year.
Additional Kscope19 Thanks
Insum would like to thank our friends at Sticker Mule for providing us with custom printed vinyl stickers. They were quite popular at the show. See you next year!
