SQL Developer team kicks off Oracle SQL Developer SIG at OpenWorld

Oracle SQL Developer has a discussion forum on OTN, like most other products at Oracle. It also runs an (APEX) app for gathering enhancement requests. So the team is plugged into the community on a few levels. There's a SQL Developer area on the Oracle Wiki, which is perhaps underused, but may get more traffic now that we have the SQL Developer SDK material starting to grow, and there's a list of folk who belong to the SQL Developer group on Oracle Mix. However, we still feel there is a need. There is a small and growing community of Extension Builders who seem to have nowhere to share ideas and with the advent of the new Data Modeling features, there'll be an increasing need there too.

We thought about a Customer Advisory Board (CAB) and settled on a Special Interest Group (SIG), because we'd like to get everyone who is doing something with SQL Developer to get involved.

This blog is the result of our very first meeting, held at Oracle OpenWorld, Sept 2008. I'm sorry if you didn't know we were going to have this, and I'm sorry if you knew but couldn't find us. The notes below are from the meeting and I hope you can get involved now:

A small group made it to an early meeting at the Unconference at Oracle OpenWorld, early on Thursday morning of the last day of conference and Sue Harper, Kris Rice and John McGinnis, all from the SQL Developer team, joined them. While the SQL Developer SIG is for anyone who is interested in SQL Developer and its various focus areas (including Modeling and Migration), the initial concept was born out of the need to help the user community when creating user defined extensions. The following were the discussion points. I have added subsequent actions and feedback too.

• Website

• The Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG) has offered to host the SQL Developer SIG. [http://www.odtug.com]
  
• The group agreed that this would be great and that we should use this for user papers, "how to" documents and viewlets (demos).
  
  We have accepted the ODTUG's offer, who said work on the new site will begin in October. In the meantime, do be aware that you can use the Oracle Wiki if you have material you wish to share.
  

• Forum
• Create a new and separate Forum on OTN for Extensions. This should be a combined forum for SQL Developer and JDeveloper extensions as the theory is the same and both teams suffer on their respective forums with extensions building questions getting lost in the milieu of the other tool questions.
  
  Since the meeting, it has been recommended that we do not diversify the forums too much, as this can lead to confusion for posters. (Knowing where to post questions.) The latest upgrade of the forum software means that we can now TAG our posts, making searching much easier. So we'll hold off on the new separate forum in the short term and encourage the use of TAGGING instead.
  

• Conference Calls
• The SIG can be used to present updates to users, in particular for users developing extensions to SQL Developer. Instead of scheduling regular calls, we'll announce a webcast/conference call prior to a release, to alert extension builders of new functionality. i.e Concalls or webcasts will be event driven.

• Feature prioritisation
• We have the SQL Developer Exchange for all feature requests. Users vote on these and so we have some form of prioritisation. However, some features are useful but not voted on and we also still need to prioritize those voted on. It would be really useful if the SIG members could periodically take a selection of features and prioritize those. This would be a SIG members only activity and moderated by ODTUG.
  
  More on becoming a SIG member once the ODTUG website is set up.
  

• SIG Blog
• Create a community hub and have a central SIG blog. This would also be "members only" and users will need to apply to add entries to the blog.
  
• Host on BLOGSPOT
  
  You are reading the first entry. Now all that remains is for you to sign up to start posting blog entries. Please contact sue.harper@oracle.com with the contents of your first post in order to be added as a contributor.
  
  
  
  
• Request that more bugs are publicized.
• Bugs by default are not public, nor does it make sense to publish all bugs as the team tracks internal issues and minor issues.
• Oracle Support publishes customer bugs (using Metalink) and the team publishes bugs many bugs created from forum entries.
  

• Publishing Third Party Extensions
• Request that there is a central or automated place for third-party extensions.
  
  We have started the Check for Updates for third party extensions and so this allows users to have extensions hosted on their own sites and managed by themselves, so augmented by using Check for Updates users can get the latest updates.
  Users who want their extensions added to the Check for Updates facility should contact sue.harper@oracle.com

So that's it. The SIG is now officially launched, as is the blog. Now we'd like you to add some posts. If you want to be an author on the BLOG, please contact me as specified above. You do not need to get in touch to follow this Blog, nor do you need to get in touch if you want to be a SIG member. Do join the SQL Developer group on Oracle Mix.

Sue Harper
Product Manager - Oracle SQL Developer