It is with mixed emotions that I formally announce the retirement of the ODTUG Technical Journal … and along with it the ODTUG Editor’s Choice Award, since, well, there will be no Editor.

ODTUG Technical Journal, now Retired

Times have changed, significantly, since I first volunteered for the Technical Journal in 2006 – writing book reviews, then as Associate Technical Editor, and finally as Editor.  This is a span of almost 10 yrs.  To put things in perspective, 10 years ago:

• The top 5 cell phones were NOT smartphones (remember Nokia and Motorola flip phones?)
• Smartphone options included Blackberry and Palm Treo
• Twitter was brand new
• Blogging was just gaining in popularity
• LinkedIn existed but had not taken off yet (launched in 2003)
• YouTube was launched, starting video blogging
• The Kindle did not exist (introduced in 2007)
• The iPhone did not exist (debuted in 2007)
• The iPad did not exist (introduced in 2010)
• The ODTUG listservs were a popular, excellent way of exchanging questions, answers and advice. An actual ODTUG listserv question from September 2005:

Hi,

We are considering using Oracle's HTML DB to do some web development. Does
anyone who has experience in using this, have time to spare to make some 
comments about it?  I am particularly interested if anyone knows from where 
inside of Oracle this came from and if it is likely to have a long shelf life.

Thanks

(see http://www.freelists.org/post/oracle-l/HTML-DB-here-to-stay for a trip down memory lane).

Well, we know what happened with all of the above.  Technology has changed – advanced. Rapidly.

Accordingly, how we Oracle Developers work has changed. How we communicate has changed. How we learn has changed. How we find and consume learning and reference materials has changed from hard-copy, book-based to online, blog and video-based.

The ODTUG Technical Journal served its purpose through the years, providing Oracle developer tools white papers, book reviews, volunteer features, conference highlights and more. The Technical Journal transitioned from quarterly paper editions to 100% online bi-weekly releases at the end of 2012.  The online Technical Journal Corner enabled publication of material of all media types – blog, video, audio as well as traditional white paper format.

Quite simply, it is no longer practical to consistently consolidate the best-of-the-best materials on a single journal or website in a manner that is searchable and accessible to all Oracle developers.  Static web pages have been superseded by blog aggregators and twitter streams. We at ODTUG prefer to stay ahead of the curve in serving our members, and thus our final Technical Journal Corner article will be posted this month, and as of May 1^st the ODTUG Technical Journal Corner will be retired. All postings there will stay ~ just no new material added.

The last post will be by Nikos Karagiannidis, SQL Tuning for Day-to-Day Data Warehouse Support, posting in the coming week.

I wish to thank and applaud all those who have contributed to the ODTUG Technical Journal through the years.  I have enjoyed working with each and every one of you ~ far too many individual authors to list here ~ but I thank you all for your contributions.

In particular I would like to thank our long-term dedicated columnists who served for multiple years since I have been editor:  Joe Begenwald, who even delivered his Ask the Experts column when he could not see, Neelesh Shah who contributed years worth of book reviews, Lucas Jellema who taught us all much about Oracle Fusion Middleware, Mark Rittman, star of BI Perspectives, Kevin McGinley for stepping on the BI column, Steven Feuerstein for his unique Confessions of a Quick and Dirty Programmer, Ed Roske and Tim Tow for the Look Smarter Than You Are with Hyperion column, and John King for a wealth of Volunteer Spotlights and overall general encouragement.  Many thanks to Donna Richey-Winkelman and Maggie Tompkins, Editors Emeritus, for setting the bar high as previous editors of the ODTUG Technical Journal.  Finally, I would like to thank Peter Koletzke for teaching me by example how to be a better editor. It has been a privilege working with you all.

So what’s next?  Watch the ODTUG Communities: APEX, Business Intelligence, ADF, Database, EPM, and Career Track where you will find blog aggregators, twitter handles, a Calendar of Events more. Sign up for ODTUG Webinars, free learning from ODTUG experts. Better yet, volunteer! ODTUG is a volunteer organization serving Oracle developers around the world. We need you!

At this time we will also be retiring the ODTUG Editor’s Choice award, traditionally awarded at our annual Kscope conference for excellence in communication of a technical topic.

We at ODTUG still wish to honor excellence in the Oracle Tools development world. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce the inaugural ODTUG Oracle Developer Innovation and Excellence Award, designed to honor innovation, excellence and amazing accomplishment in the realm of Oracle Development Tools adoption and integration.  Watch for more information on this new award – complete details will be released in the coming weeks.

As always, happy coding,

and keep your eye out for Awesome Extraordinary, Innovtive Stuff ~ More Soon!

Karen

Editor Emeritus, ODTUG Technical Journal

Off to the Islands, where all retired Editors go