Friends,

Patrick Barel (developer and administrator of the utPLSQL discussion forum, and all-around fantastic Oracle + Delphi technologist) and I have been working hard on a project that is near and dear to my heart:

utPLSQL is an utterly wonderful testing framework, but I have always felt that it needs an easy to use and powerful interface to make it more accessible and productive. Ounit will provide precisely that graphical interface and will, I believe, qualitatively improve your ability to use utPLSQL to test your code. Ounit 1 (June 2003) will offer an elegant, clean way to run your tests and view results. Ounit 1.5 (Fall 2003) will add significant test package generation capabilities and more. I will be sending out lots more information about Ounit very soon.

For now, I have a request or two or three for you:

* Please visit the very rudimentary (and soon to be vastly improved) www.ounit.com website and add your name to the Yahoo Groups list serve if you are interested in getting more information on Ounit.

* Reply to ME if you would like to be a BETA TESTER of Ounit. You will receive early notice and links to the software within a couple of weeks.

* TELL ME YOUR UTPLSQL STORY! We will be providing Ounit News at the ounit.com site and the most important news I can give anyone is to report on your usage of utPLSQL. Do you have a success story to share? Examples of test packages or adaptations of the utPLSQL framework for your testing? Reply to me with that information or an initial response. If we use your story, you will be featured on the Ounit site -- AND I will send you a free copy of the new, second edition Oracle PL/SQL Language Quick Reference from OReilly.

Many thanks!
SF

PS - I am having an absolute BLAST building Ounit -- and more. I am working now on integrating Ounit into a utility with wider scope and impact. It will offer really REALLY cool pattern-based code generation and automated validation of your coding standards. I haven't yet decided on a name for the product. If you want to find out more about THIS project, just get in touch -- and if you come up with a name that I like and use, I will send you a full set of my Oracle PL/SQL books as an expression of my thanks!