I really do appreciate you all sounding off here. It really rattled me earlier this year when I was told that the place I worked at didn't like the Referential Integrity down at the database level. When I heard this in the way of someone else saying "yeah - that's good" (in reference to their being no RF in the database), I was starting to think I was being left in the dark in understanding why SQL was being used this way.

The all too common response is as you have all pointed out - we need speed, and the engine doesn't have to worry about looking at RF when we do it up in the app.

My response to this is often with a smile and a nod, but inside I am just fuming with frustration over a mentality that is prevailing in today's e-Commerce (and other) markets.

SQL Server (from what I have studied) was not meant to be compromised in this way, but if people believe that they will lose overall query speed for their app by putting an appropriate design in place for RF - what can you do?

:crazy: