Skip to main content

Oracle MetaLink runs Oracle HTML DB

As John Scott pointed out, Oracle MetaLink is now running Oracle HTML DB.

This is a major step for Oracle HTML DB's credibility, as Oracle itself made the conscious decision to re-write one of its most mission critical customer-facing systems in Oracle HTML DB over any and all other technologies.

Comments

Colin Sheppard said…
Wow! How come the Oracle HTML DB Team did not boast that first?

I am not all that surprised the HTML DB has surplanted Oracle Portal

I wonder if Oracle will make the Source Code for the Metalink application publically available?
December 19, 2005 at 3:39 AM
Anonymous said…
why would oracle want to publish its own code?
December 19, 2005 at 5:21 AM
Scott said…
Wow! How come the Oracle HTML DB Team did not boast that first?

Not sure, you'd have to ask them. :)

I am not all that surprised the HTML DB has surplanted Oracle Portal

MetaLink was never written in Portal it used to be hand-coded PL/SQL.

I wonder if Oracle will make the Source Code for the Metalink application publically available?

I would highly doubt that, as MetaLink is a proprietary application which Oracle spent a lot of time & money to develop in order to provide a key differentiator for their customers. Just because its in HTML DB is not enough reason to release the source code.

Of course, I no longer work there, and this is purely my speculation...

Thanks,

- Scott -
December 19, 2005 at 7:28 AM
Colin Sheppard said…
I am not all that surprised the HTML DB has surplanted Oracle Portal

MetaLink was never written in Portal it used to be hand-coded PL/SQL.


Oops, I thought it was!

If Oracle was contemplating release asktom as a HTML DB Studio application, I thought they might do the same with Metalink. I nice solid application would be great to push HTML DB with. Perhaps you can ask? ("If you don't ask, you don't get!")
December 19, 2005 at 10:06 AM
Anonymous said…
Is Metalink currently down, or is just me?

Any connection to America waking up?
December 19, 2005 at 10:10 AM
Anonymous said…
Oops, I thought it was!

well you would be wrong. Assuming things just doesnt work sometimes.

Still dont see whay Oracle releasing code for metalink would be good. What wold anyone gain from it. It is a propietary and Oracle specific app
December 19, 2005 at 10:20 AM
Colin Sheppard said…
There are features like for example, forums/tickets that they have inside that would be useful for others to adapt.
December 19, 2005 at 10:35 AM
Anonymous said…
At the risk of playing Devils Advocate, I'd say that the strength of both AskTom and Metalink isn't the application "per se", but the content behind it.

I don't think there would be a huge benefit in Oracle releasing the code for Metalink (nor really the AskTom code), since they're both pretty specialised applications and given the speed of development possible with HTMLDB it would almost be faster/easier to write a new application than to try and "bend" an existing one to fit the new purpose.
December 19, 2005 at 10:59 AM
Colin Sheppard said…
I just would like it to see how they do it. In some parts I might be interest in how they implement the design. In other parts I might be interested in knowing what style the might have used say in using stored procedures vs putting logic onto the page itself.

I think its really a harmless thing to do. I don't think there is any competitive advantage they would lose by disclosing it.
December 19, 2005 at 11:18 AM
Scott said…
If Oracle was contemplating release asktom as a HTML DB Studio application, I thought they might do the same with Metalink. I nice solid application would be great to push HTML DB with. Perhaps you can ask? ("If you don't ask, you don't get!")

AskTom & MetaLink are two very different things. AskTom makes Oracle no money (directly) and costs little. It is run by one person and a part-time DBA. If it goes down, people can do little more than complain until it's restored.

MetaLink, on the other hand, is a critical system which customers pay lots of money for the privilege of using. It has a team of developers, 24/7/365 support, etc. Oracle has no reason (nor intention, I suspect) to release this code to the public for a variety of reasons.

I wouldn't even know who to ask, and trust me - the answer will 100% be no, so I'm not going to waste any time trying to research that.

Thanks,

- Scott -
December 19, 2005 at 1:57 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Custom Export to CSV

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been quite busy lately, and just have not had the time that I used to. We're expecting our 1st child in just a few short weeks now, so most of my free time has been spent learning Lamaze breathing, making the weekly run to Babies R Us, and relocating my office from the larger room upstairs to the smaller one downstairs - which I do happen to like MUCH more than I had anticipated. I have everything I need within a short walk - a bathroom, beer fridge, and 52" HD TV. I only need to go upstairs to eat and sleep now, but alas, this will all change soon... Recently, I was asked if you could change the way Export to CSV in ApEx works. The short answer is, of course, no. But it's not too difficult to "roll your own" CSV export procedure. Why would you want to do this? Well, the customer's requirement was to manipulate some data when the Export link was clicked, and then export it to CSV in a forma...
76 comments
Read more

Manipulating Images with the... Database?

A recent thread on the OTN HTML DB Forum asked about how to determine the width & height of an image stored as a BLOB in an Oracle table. I mentioned in that thread that I have some code to manipulate an image stored in a BLOB column. This is particularly useful if you’re going to let users upload images, and you want to re-size them to display as a thumbnail. Thanks to Oracle interMedia , it is trivial to manipulate the width, height, and other attributes of images stored in an Oracle table. I’ve created a sample application here which demonstrates Oracle interMedia and HTML DB in action. Feel free to have a look. You can download this application from HTML DB Studio as well. Basically, this application allows you to upload images and perform an operation on the image as it is inserted into the PHOTO_CATALOG table. There are two places where some PL/SQL code is required: an After Submit process on page 2, and a procedure to display the images. Here is the PL/SQL for the After...
33 comments
Read more

Refreshing PL/SQL Regions in APEX

If you've been using APEX long enough, you've probably used a PL/SQL Region to render some sort of HTML that the APEX built-in components simply can't handle. Perhaps a complex chart or region that has a lot of custom content and/or layout. While best practices may be to use an APEX component, or if not, build a plugin, we all know that sometimes reality doesn't give us that kind of time or flexibility. While the PL/SQL Region is quite powerful, it still lacks a key feature: the ability to be refreshed by a Dynamic Action. This is true even in APEX 5. Fortunately, there's a simple workaround that only requires a small change to your code: change your procedure to a function and call it from a Classic Report region. In changing your procedure to a function, you'll likely only need to make one type of change: converting and htp.prn calls to instead populate and return a variable at the end of the function. Most, if not all of the rest of the code can rem...
5 comments
Read more