The other day, I posted about my ideal concept of source control for database schema and I got a few interesting comments. 

A lot of people recommended Red Gate Software’s SQL Compare tool.  I have been a customer of Red Gate for awhile and I’m quite happy with SQL Compare.  It comes quite close to being the perfect tool for merging database schema and objects.  Where it falls a little short is when updating stored procedures and views.  It doesn’t actually merge the procedures and views.  You have the choice of migrating your version of the object or not.  What I would like to see is something that can merge objects as easily as you can merge source code.  Also, as the name of tool states, it’s a comparing tool not a control tool.  I would love to see an application that gives me all of the features of a quality source control management application.

Frans Bouma said that I was running into problems because I didn’t do proper design.  I can concede that the database for our internal apps does not have the greatest design in the world, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with differencing and merging schema.  Even if I go and design the worlds greatest database I think I would still benefit from a quality schema merging tool.  (As an aside, he mentioned the use of stored procedures versus dynamic sql.  Frans and I share a similar view on stored procs but that is another conversation.)

I can think of a couple reasons why it’s a good idea, but I haven’t come up with any that make it a downright bad idea.  But there are smart people out there that can tell me why.