• Just remember that enforcing referential constraints doesn't just ensure good, clean data. You also get performance enhancements when the query optimizer knows that foreign key constraints are in place and enforced. The clean data argument alone should be enough to win this argument, but it doesn't hurt to also know about the performance enhancements.

    "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
    - Theodore Roosevelt

    Author of:
    SQL Server Execution Plans
    SQL Server Query Performance Tuning