Pointers for stored procedures?

The title is not very good here, but I thought it might get some attention.

The problem is one that must have been solved before, and I'm sure someone here has the answer. I have built a fairly large database using SQL Server. We have a few stored procedures written, and many more to come. My concern is that the tables and columns could change.

Say we've got 100 stored procedures referencing a column. We want to change the name of the column, or something. I know this is a very, very dumb idea, but it makes for a simple example. We would have to trace all the objects in the system that are dempendent on that field, and make the appropriate changes. This is more work than it should be.

If we had the stored procedures looking at a view instead, we would only have to change the view. We would be using the view as a pointer, or an api or an interface, depending on whose language you speak. This makes sense from one perspective, but I suspect it would drastically slow down the execution of the procedure.

Is there any generally accepted practice that is missing from all the "Database Administration for Dummies" type articles I have seen? Thanks for any insights you can offer!

Scott Received on Thu Feb 01 2001 - 16:42:58 CET