Introduction: Why You Should Steal This Book—with Apologies to Abbie Hoffman

Wise men often say that the first step to wisdom is learning that we know nothing—not even the right questions to ask. The implication is that we must listen to those with experience and contemplate the deeper meaning of their questions and answers. And in the end, a new experience may undo much of what everyone thought to be true.

This observation applies not only to sages on a mountaintop contemplating esoteric subjects such as philosophy, but also to those of us needing to know about a highly technical subject like providing persistent data within enterprise Java applications.

Imagine you were asked to choose the persistence mechanism for new Java applications within ...

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