The document discusses using Ruby on Rails as a supplement to Oracle Application Express (Apex) for building applications. It provides an overview of why Rails may be useful when Apex has limitations, such as communicating with external systems, parsing emails, or SSH/FTP functionality. The document then covers why Ruby and Rails are good options, how ActiveRecord can be used to interface with databases, and examples of sample Rails applications and projects that interface with external systems or call Java code. It concludes with recommendations around learning Ruby first before frameworks, assessing needs, and using tools to complement rather than replace existing systems like Apex.