Great article. Microsoft Access was my first introduction to databases. (For those who don't know, MS Access is like "excel for databases.") Gave me a good-enough sense of what was happening under the hood. Started me on a career in software. 15 years later, I'm in a recently updated version of enterprise SQL Server (say what you will, but it works for us). I chuckle every time i get to write IIF(x,y,z) in a SELECT statement. I was doing that in access in 2003.