🚀 Blog post update! A recent conversation inspired me to refresh a post on deploying MLE/JavaScript with SQLcl & Liquibase. New coverage includes: ✨ SQL-format Liquibase changelogs 🛠️ SQLcl Projects for Database CI/CD Useful if you are on Oracle AI Database: martincarstenbach.com/2024/08/15/c...

Create MLE/JavaScript modules using Liquibase

Multilingual Engine, or MLE for short, allows developers to use the hugely popular JavaScript language to write server-side code since Oracle Database 23ai has been released for Linux/Intel and Lin…

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FreeSQL is the easiest way to get started with Oracle SQL, PL/SQL & JavaScript. All you need is a browser. 🖥️ It's also behind the new interactive "Run" buttons in the Oracle AI Database 26ai docs. Curious? More details 👇 martincarstenbach.com/2026/07/01/o...

Oracle AI Database 26ai docs have become interactive

Oracle AI Database 26ai documentation is becoming interactive ⌨️! Instead of copying SQL examples into your own environment (which you may have to set up…), you can now execute selected code …

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After introducing the modern AI development stack for data-centric apps it was time to put that stack to good use: analysing workloads captured in AWR reports. Does a coding agent understand them? Find out more 👉 martincarstenbach.com/2026/06/26/r... #AI #Oracle #Performance #AWR

Real productivity gains with AI: Automatic Workload Repository

After setting the scene in the previous articles detailing the various components of the Modern AI Development Stack with Oracle AI Database at the centre, let’s put this environment to good …

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Found another practical use case for AI: help me fix the discrepancy between inline code and regular text on my blog. Took me 2 minutes to fix what would otherwise meant a lot of internet searching 🎉

Don’t let database startup delays break your CI pipeline. I wrote a short post how to use health checks in Docker and Podman to ensure database dependent calls don’t fail unnecessarily: martincarstenbach.com/2026/06/10/u...

Using Podman and Docker Health Checks to Prevent CI Pipeline Failures

I recently experimented with Continuous Integration (CI) pipelines in GitLab, and I needed a way to detect the availability of an Oracle AI Database 26ai Free instance running in Podman. Unless the…

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Hardcoding passwords into scripts always feels like a temporary solution… …right until it ends up in Git 😅 I wrote a short post on handling secrets more safely in SQLcl projects and completing admin tasks without creating a security nightmare: martincarstenbach.com/2026/05/25/c...

Handling Secrets Safely in SQLcl Projects Deployments

TL;DR: for security reasons you cannot possibly store sensitive information in Git. There have been too many occasions where API keys, passwords, or other configuration data has been exposed. Abuse…

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Kurze Frage für die deutschsprachige Bubble: kennt ihr Clever & Smart und/oder Spy vs Spy? Frage für einen Freund …

Funny typos #42: $ gut pull It certainly feels like that sometimes 🤣 Maybe I should create a shell alias …

Tell me you have been in IT for a long time without telling me you have been in IT for a long time: $ set -o vi Now I’m trying to find out how to enable Emacs key bindings in zsh…

🚀 New post: JavaScript precision isn’t as safe as you might think 🤔 I break down how numeric precision loss happens in JavaScript, and how to avoid it. Especially for financial data and large numbers. The post applies to both node and MLE/JavaScript. 👇 martincarstenbach.com/2026/04/13/a...

Avoiding precision loss with MLE/JavaScript in Oracle AI Database 26ai

Oracle AI Database 26ai introduced Multilingual Engine (MLE), allowing you to run JavaScript inside the database. This feature bumps the number of languages available to write server-side code to 3…

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I just read that 90% of all organisations who responded to the DORA 2025 survey adopted platform engineering. Ninety percent 🤩 That’s a pretty significant number. I’d love to hear from you how you/the team adopted platform engineering, in particular wrt Oracle database.

Do you use SQLcl in GitHub Actions? If so, you might like the latest update to gvenzl/setup-oracle-sqlcl. Release 1.3.0 allows you to pin a specific release to your pipeline. This is particularly useful for anyone using SQLcl Projects. Details 👇 martincarstenbach.com/2026/03/17/u...

Updated setup-oracle-sqlcl Action and why it matters for SQLcl projects

This is a short post announcing a small but important change in the way you install SQLcl in GitHub Actions. The latest release allows you to install a specific SQLcl release in addition to the lat…

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Using Codex to generate unit tests for Oracle REST Data Services gave me a real productivity boost 🤖 Curious? I recorded a short video 📽️ showing my approach, with running commentary: martincarstenbach.com/2026/03/05/r... Do you have an internal platform? Use CI/CD? Let me know in the comments 🙏

Real productivity gains with AI: coding unit tests for your ORDS endpoints. A walthrough

After the completion of my little experiment writing unit tests with the help of AI I was so excited I spontaneously recorded a short video, too. In this video I’m walking you throw my code e…

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Here's a short "life hack", allowing you to use utPLSQL in your CI pipeline. OK, right, you could do that before, but this time, if there are failed unit tests your pipeline run will abort. No need for any other software, just SQLcl to run the tests. martincarstenbach.com/2026/03/04/l...

Life hack: causing utPLSQL to raise an error in case of failed tests

The wonderful Symposium 42 community is always a source of inspiration, kindness and willingness to help. Many thanks to everyone for lending me an ear while ranting about utPLSQL (tongue in cheek …

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Kaum zu glauben, dass die DOAG K+A schon wieder eine Woche her ist. So viele inspirierende Gespräche, starke Sessions und kleine, lustige Momente – höchste Zeit für einen Blick zurück! 😃 Ob auf der #DOAG2025, #LowCodeCreator oder #KINavigator – was waren eure Highlights? 😊 #DOAGDevs

I started an experiment and let AI write my unit tests. What used to take me 1 hour now takes 10 minutes. Here’s how I used Codex with Oracle AI Database 26ai to generate tests for my ORDS endpoints 👇 martincarstenbach.com/2026/03/04/r...

Real productivity gains with AI: coding unit tests for your ORDS endpoints

Ever since I first heard about them, I have become a great fan of unit tests, Test-Driven-Development, and CI/CD in general. Whenever I can, I incorporate these into my demos. I wrote a fair bit ab…

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Finally finding some time to dig deeper into the DORA 2025 Report. The recording of this webinar is very insightful in my opinion. For example, just throwing in AI without having thought about a platform might not provide the productivity gains you hoped for. www.thoughtworks.com/insights/rep...

🚨New Blog post 🚨 Does your application receive JSON via REST calls? If so, how do you make you don't receive garbage data? Using JSON Schema is a neat way to do that. Here's an example using ORDS and Oracle AI Database 26ai (incl. server-side JavaScript)👇 martincarstenbach.com/2026/03/01/u...

Using JSON Schema to validate data submitted to the database via REST Calls

The title’s a mouthful (sorry!), but here’s the core idea: your application exposes REST endpoints through Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS). When a client uses POST to insert new records, the input…

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🚀 New Blog Post 🚨 A recent forum question provided inspiration 💡 If you ever found yourself in the situation where you had to provide additional detail in a JSON Relational Duality View this post shows one way to do it 👉 martincarstenbach.com/2026/02/23/a...

Augmenting JSON Relational Duality Views with generated data

A recent forum post inspired this brief article on generating summary data in JSON Relational Duality Views. Typically you map a table’s columns to fields in the resulting JSON. If you can&#8…

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🚀 New post: Handling query parameters in JavaScript-based Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) endpoints Covers: • How ORDS exposes query parameters • Safe access & validation patterns • Pitfalls (implicit type conversion!) • Making endpoints more predictable 👉 martincarstenbach.com/2026/02/20/h...

Handling Query Parameters in JavaScript-based ORDS Endpoints

Oracle REST Data Services (ORDS) allows you to REST-enable your Oracle Database. REST is short for Representational State Transfer, and REST calls are typically used as your database API (Applicati…

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With #JSON duality views in Oracle AI Database you can build a JSON interface over database tables These come with lost-update detection via ETags @martindba.bsky.social shows how this prevents conflicting writes for REST calls by using the if-match header

Optimistic Locking Made Easy: The Power of ETags in Action

JSON Relational Duality Views are one of the most remarkable features introduced with Oracle AI Database 26ai. They effortlessly blend the best of both worlds: relational and document, greatly simp…

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D’oh! Scratched my head for 10 minutes asking myself why microdnf doesn’t find the local rpm. Turns out microdnf as it ships in Oracle Linux 9 simply can’t install local RPMs. Switching to the not quite as slim image helped.

Wait, what? In 2023 I bought 64GB DDR5-5600 for 210€. Today, if I wanted to get 64GB DRAM (identical spec) I have to part with 879€ 🤯 <insert your favourite combination of swear words here>

Looking at my posting insights in Wordpress and I thought ... wouldn't it be fun to post "Tetris" style? Nearly did that in January 🤣

Optimistic locking with React, ETags, @OracleREST endpoints, and JSON Relational Duality Views in Oracle AI Database — but shown in a UI that people actually want to use. I recorded a short demo video to prove it. Blog post & video here: martincarstenbach.com/2026/02/05/o...

Optimistic Locking Made Easy: JSON Relational Duality Views & ETags in React

In my previous post I demonstrated how ETags can help your web application implement concurrent data access and optimistic locking. Except I didn’t use a web application … Rather than a…

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A little chuffed about the fact that I finished a small React app today to interact with a JSON Relational Duality view via REST. Oracle ORDS kindly provided the endpoint for me. Thanks to react-bootstrap it does look half-decent, too

Minions GIF

ALT: Minions GIF

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🚨 New blog post! I just migrated a PL/SQL app to JavaScript (yes—still inside the database 😎). As part of the experiment I put JSON Relational Duality Views + ETags to the test for optimistic locking. Spoiler: it works beautifully. Dive in 👇 martincarstenbach.com/2026/02/03/o...

Optimistic Locking Made Easy: The Power of ETags in Action

JSON Relational Duality Views are one of the most remarkable features introduced with Oracle AI Database 26ai. They effortlessly blend the best of both worlds: relational and document, greatly simp…

martincarstenbach.com

Not entirely convinced of zone 2 training. It sure is fun and leisurely but I almost feel as if it made me slower. What’s your experience? This is about running but it might as well apply to cycling 🚴 🏃 #running #endurance #cycling

So far I only used the syntax highlighter block in Wordpress. I was today <n> years old when I noticed that the code block has syntax highlighting for many more languages than syntax highlighter . Plus it can do line numbers, display the language and add a copy button ☺️

Did you know you can write User Defined Functions in TypeScript for Oracle AI Database 26ai? I’ve just updated my article showing how to transpile TypeScript, apply Biome for linting, all with CI in mind — just like you would for any modern app: 👉 martincarstenbach.com/2023/07/04/l...