Session state

APEX runs in the Web environment. The Web environment is, by nature, a stateless environment. In a traditional client-server environment, the client establishes a permanent connection with the server and can rely on the historical results of previous actions to perform the current ones, hence, a stateful environment. On the other hand the Web browser, for instance, only establishes a short-term connection with the Web server, for the duration of one specific request, and such as that request does not rely on any results of previous requests. Each such request must be independent of other requests, hence, a stateless environment. For example, if you are logged into legacy accounting software and ask it to print a report, the system can rely on the fact that you were already authenticated in the past (during the login process) and will not ask you to do that again. If your accounting software was running on the Web, it would not have been able to rely on past actions and their...