Summary
This chapter introduced the topic of Java database programming in today's programming world. We have seen how Java has grown and progressed from a small side project at Sun Microsystems to the language of choice for enterprise application development. We have also seen how JDBC fits into this picture as being the API developed by Sun to provide access to relational databases using a vendor-neutral API.
There are some alternatives to JDBC, such as OR-mapping and the incipient JDO. But when existing relational databases with all their complexity must be accessed, JDBC is the tool of choice.