Learning MySQL

By Seyed M.M. "Saied" Tahaghoghi, Hugh E. Williams
Price: $44.99 USD
£31.99 GBP

Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon

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Colophon

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects.



The type of butterfly on the cover of Learning MySQL is the blue spotted crow (euploea midamus). One of more than 15,000 species of butterfly, this member of the brush-footed family Nymphalidae (which also is home to the Monarch) is native to the Orient and can be found in a region that spreads from Afghanistan to Australia. As its name suggests, the crow is distinguished by its blue tint, as well as a series of white spots that line the hind edge of its large wings.



In the course of their lives, butterflies go through four development stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Butterfly eggs, ovate or spherical in shape, are attached to leaves by a powerful, quickly hardening glue until they hatch. In the larval stage, butterflies are commonly referred to as caterpillars, and their bodies are divided into many small segments, each possessing up to four pairs of legs. Caterpillars have insatiable appetites, feeding practically nonstop on plant matter and molting approximately four or five times before becoming pupae. At this third phase, the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis, typically cleaving to the underside of a leaf. The chrysalis then consumes foodstuffs that enable it to develop its wing structures and make the metamorphosis into an adult butterfly. In this final stage of development, the butterfly is known as an imago, a four-winged creature with six legs. Imagos subsist mainly on flower nectar; some supplement their diets with nutrients from sap, pollen, rotten fruit, or dung.



In Japanese culture, butterflies are somewhat paradoxically mythologized as both harbingers of prosperity and impending doom. One superstition stipulates that a single butterfly flying into one's bedroom presages the arrival of one's dearest love, while an encounter with a swarm of butterflies is thought to be a precursor to ominous events.



The cover image is from Cassell's Natural History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed.

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