Programmers should have more than a passing understanding of database administration. They should understand regularization / constraints / ACID / SQL / etc. This was core curriculum in my CS undergraduate. More importantly they should understand why they are important and when they are needed. Most of the commenters here are probably programmers who understand these things -- or programmers who have gotten burned by database stew and learned the hard way. It seems like you would to well to take a deep breath, drop the antagonistic view of traditional databases (just another tool), and educate yourself on their use and implementation.