Obsessed with Oracle PL/SQL

So I signed up for my Always Free Autonomous Database (AFAD) and a boatload of other cloud services. OK, what shall I do with them? Hmmm....well....as some of you may know, I've gotten very concerned about climate change and human-caused extinctions. I started a project with Vincent Morneau called fabe - for all a beautiful earth - to help all of us reduce consumption, rescue species and reconnect to nature. Check it out at https://fab.earth . Yes, it is an APEX application and it is already running on an Oracle Database cloud service, so....what else? You know the saying "think globally, act locally"? Well, if fabe is global, then my work on invasive species is local, very  local. When I lived in Chicago, I went out to the nearest "wild" spaces I could find and cut back buckthorn trees that didn't belong in Chicago, out-competed native trees for sunlight, and killed off those native species. I rescued trees  - and the literally millions of living...

On September 16, Larry Ellison announced a new Always Free tier for Oracle Cloud, which (for me) most importantly includes an Always Free Autonomous Oracle Database. For nothing but the "cost" of providing your credit card information (which is only used for identification purposes and is henceforth ignored until you decide to upgrade to a paid service), everyone in the world now can use the most powerful, most advanced database in the world FOR FREE. Of course, there are limits. But oh my what generous limits they are! Get lots more details here . And it's not just the amazing Autonomous Database (in both transaction processing and data warehouse flavors). You get Oracle Application Express (APEX) so you can build websites  writing very little code, and taking full advantage of your SQL and PL/SQL skills. You get SQL Developer to write what code you need and manage your database. You get Oracle Rest Data Services to build REST endpoints against your...

This question rolled into my In Box today: If I have a procedure that is AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION that does an insert and then it calls a procedure with an insert, does the second procedure need a commit, or will the procedure with the AUTONOMOUS_TRANSACTION handle the commit? If you don't know off the top of your head, don't worry, I can build a test. First of all, if you ever find yourself writing something like "If you don't know off the top of your head, don't worry, I can build a test." then please by all means go right ahead and build yourself a test script. By doing so, you will better understand the feature in question and remember what you learned. Plus you end up with a script you can share with the community on LiveSQL . But I don't mind answering such questions. That way I get to better understand the feature in question, remember what I learned, share a script on LiveSQL (link at bottom of post), and also add to my blog. :-) So here goe...