Question

In sql server …

Should I maintain stored procedures via the object broswer in query analyzer, or as external text files and why?

Answer 1

…another vote for text files in source control.

• A huge benefit is revision history. Comparing versions can give you insight into problems, and save you hours of debugging, especially that of the “I wonder why they did that,” variety.
• If you’re having a problem in one database instance that you’re not seeing in others, you can export the stored procedure in question, compare it to what’s in source control, and make sure you’re consistent across instances.
• It makes deployment of code into a new database instance easier-to-control. For instance, you can write an Ant task to audit your database schema, and have a task that runs the procedure-creation code as a step in that process.
• You can look at procedure source without having to connect to the database. This may be especially valuable in recovery scenarios.
• It enforces the discipline of keeping scripts available, instead of having your team to one-off changes in GUI tools. The GUI tool changes work, but are lost forever, if not captured in a script.