Databases are software. I've based the second half of a software development career that began in 1978 on this simple idea. If you've found this book, chances are you're willing to at least entertain the possibility that databases and their attendant programmability are worthy of the same rigor and process as the rest of an application. Good for you It's a great pleasure for me to join you on this jo- ney, however briefly, via this foreword. There is a good possibility that you've grown as skeptical as I have of the conventional wisdom that treats the "back end" as an afterthought in the...