Although my general perception about the development tools of Oracle has never been quite good but I have always admired and loved PL/SQL; especially the PL part of it. Oracle has done quite a few changes in normal syntax of SQL as well and I think they have only enhanced the normal standard ANSI SQL which is the standard and is independent of any DBMS. Many believe that Analytical Functions introduced by Oracle are the best things that has happened to SQL after SELECT statement. Coming back to PL/SQL...
The greatest thing about PL/SQL has been over the years is that it is tightly integrated to a RDBMS that holds more than 40% of market share of databases. You can query something and immediately start using the programming constructs with absolutely no extra effort. All you have to do is to enclose your query within a Begin and an End. You don't need to do import any classes or packages; there are no setup costs or efforts. Although the part of it has to do with Oracle including its compiler into the RDBMS but you simply can't resist the simplicity and usefulness of this language. Every Oracle application developer will happily tell you how good it is and how difficult his/her life would have been without it.
When Oracle started to push Java more and more - due to whatever reasons - many thought that end is near for PL/SQL. With the recent acquisition of Sun Micro Systems by Oracle and thus Java as well, this rumor started to heat up again. But somehow it has successfully passed the test of time ever since it came into being back in 1988 with Oracle Version 6. Although its name still says that it is a procedural language but it has everything that an object oriented language should have. Even every SOA application has some kind of dependency on it because it manipulates and programs the single most important entity of an organization i.e. Data with ease that is unmatched.
When Oracle introduced HTML DB now known as APEX I was more than sure that Oracle has no plans of deprecating PL/SQL. APEX is another very handy tool that uses just PL/SQL and nothing else. If you want to quickly build Oracle database backed web applications APEX is your dream tool and much like PL/SQL it is free as well. You can literally build entire websites just using PL/SQL and this is just another huge plus point for a language that is mostly considered an underdog.
The greatest thing about PL/SQL has been over the years is that it is tightly integrated to a RDBMS that holds more than 40% of market share of databases. You can query something and immediately start using the programming constructs with absolutely no extra effort. All you have to do is to enclose your query within a Begin and an End. You don't need to do import any classes or packages; there are no setup costs or efforts. Although the part of it has to do with Oracle including its compiler into the RDBMS but you simply can't resist the simplicity and usefulness of this language. Every Oracle application developer will happily tell you how good it is and how difficult his/her life would have been without it.
When Oracle started to push Java more and more - due to whatever reasons - many thought that end is near for PL/SQL. With the recent acquisition of Sun Micro Systems by Oracle and thus Java as well, this rumor started to heat up again. But somehow it has successfully passed the test of time ever since it came into being back in 1988 with Oracle Version 6. Although its name still says that it is a procedural language but it has everything that an object oriented language should have. Even every SOA application has some kind of dependency on it because it manipulates and programs the single most important entity of an organization i.e. Data with ease that is unmatched.
When Oracle introduced HTML DB now known as APEX I was more than sure that Oracle has no plans of deprecating PL/SQL. APEX is another very handy tool that uses just PL/SQL and nothing else. If you want to quickly build Oracle database backed web applications APEX is your dream tool and much like PL/SQL it is free as well. You can literally build entire websites just using PL/SQL and this is just another huge plus point for a language that is mostly considered an underdog.
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