One of the new features

One of the new features that's expected to be included in Oracle 10G is HTML DB, a new rapid application development environment for Oracle web-based applications.

Previously known as Project Marvel, details of what is now called HTML DB are available at the Project beta website, together with an overview of the technology and development process used in developing Marvel applications.

HTML DB appears to be different to working with Portal, JDeveloper and the PL/SQL Toolkit, in that you work within a declarative environment (i.e. it's point and click) using three modules - Flow Builder, SQL Workshop, and Data Workshop - to build your applications.

It looks like it's aimed at existing Oracle PL/SQL developers who wish to take advantage of web technologies such as Web Services, XML, SOAP and XSL, wrapped up in an environment that seems a little like a web-based version of Oracle Designer.

All development on HTML DB is carried out online and up until now, to get to use the product you had to use a hosted service made available by Oracle and then download a runtime version to run locally; however, it looks like the final version, now known as HTML DB, will be available bundled with the 10G database server