PL/SQL Challenge Upgraded to Release 2.3

The PL/SQL Challenge development team just completed a smooth upgrade of the site to release 2.3. Key features of this version include:

New Roundtable Discussion 

You can now participate in "roundtable" discussions of big-picture issues or questions that do not necessarily fit within the scope of a single quiz. We will use this feature to gather use cases for seldom-used features of PL/SQL, such as invoker rights, and also seek consensus on overall strategies for optimal PL/SQL development, such as exception handling. 

Fine-Grained "Rank Me" 

Prior to 2.3, when you chose to play for educational purposes only, this status applied to all quizzes and any rankings you'd accumulated disappeared. You also could not "revert" back to competitive status except during the first week of a quarter. Clearly, not ideal. You can now choose to compete (be ranked) or play for educational purposes only on a quiz-by-quiz basis. You can change this status at any time. And for all the times you played competitively, your ranking will still be visible and available.

Resource Library

When you visit the Quiz Library you will now see two tabs: Quizzes and Resources. Quizzes contains the "usual" library report: all past quizzes of the PL/SQL Challenge. The Resources tab now gives you quick, searchable access to the many resources we've been attaching to our Knowledge Tree on the PL/SQL, SQL and APEX. Most of these resources are links to Oracle documentation, but there are also plenty of links to great blog posts and Ask Tom answers, as well as a growing number of PL/SQL scripts.

Next time you need to check the Oracle documentation on a PL/SQL topic, you might find it faster and easier through the Resources Library.

You can also submit your own ideas for resources to add to our library.

Many thanks to Eli Feuerstein, who implemented these new features in APEX.