Developing Oracle Stored Procedures and/or Packages

 I currently have an application that runs off either an Oracle or SQL Server back end. Currently the queries are written in the application and passed to the appropriate database for execution. I am working on moving to stored procedures to make the performance better and simplify the application coding.

The SQL Server stored procedures thus far have been a snap. However as with everything Oracle it has been very difficult making headway with the Oracle stored procedures. I have searched the web for hours and been unsuccessful in getting the information I need. I basically want to make two types of procedures: 1) those that do specific tasks, and 2) those that return data. Both types need to be able to accept parameters. The data being returned will sometimes be a single value and other times may be multiple columns and rows.