  It is an old speculation that SU(N) gauge theory can alternatively be
formulated as a string theory. Recently this subject has been revived, in the
wake of the discovery of D-branes. In particular, it has been argued that at
least some conformally invariant cousins of the theory have such a string
representation. This is a pedagogical introduction to these developments for
non-string theorists. Some of the existing arguments are simplified.
