Wanderer,

When it comes to accessing the database I am fairly anal about how developers access the database and tend to create an abstraction layer for developers that use more simple datatypes – regardless of how the data is being physically stored.  I don’t like the approach of developers arbitrarily creating their own database access – for reasons that go beyond datatypes – the best way to ensure that developers do not bring your database to its knees is to be ware of how the database is being accessed – although I understand that this is not possible in all environments.  I have experimented with xml schemas and find that SQL server implements them well but I haven’t had a need to put them into production – yet.  Perhaps once the schemas are cast in stone it is something that I would be obliged to do.  I would think that there would be a performance knock on inserts using schemas but queries and indexes may be faster – some investigations would be required on large data volumes to really understand the performance considerations.

Simon