>Sure, many admonish stored procs. There are also people who claim that .NET can't do data munging.

Who?? Me ??? nah.. Of course playing with arrays in process memory is a good idea for munging data. Esspecially the munk work because of course, since the data is in arrays, you can't do SQL anymore. And of course, I'll hear you saying that LINQ is going to solve the problem.

?Trying to lend respectability to a point, by demonstrating google hits, is pretty unsophisticated.
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>I've found that in the 'academic' world, the number of people who advocate SPs is greater than the number who reject them. Not by a huge amount, but definitely greater. In client sites [i.e., outside of academia], I find that SPs are heavily embraced. Why do you suppose that is?

ROLFLMAO, the academical world?!? I've been there, done that... The academical world often does not have a clue. Hell, it took MS itself about 15 years to get it !!! Given the limited techniques they are aware of, they can't draw any conclusions. Overall the academical world is not capable of drawing these conclusions.

SPs can be used to secure that data, but has very limited flexibility. Further you'll see that people (yes, even academical ones) use SQL injection into SP to work arround the limitations. So there goes your security advantage.

Inserting and updating records with SP is a PITA and you have to wonder whether you want this on an evolving system, each time table structures change, you'll have to go through dozens of SP to take care of it. Not exactly fun and and efficient use of time if you ask me.

A friend of mine, with who I have long a deep discussions, is one of the best oracle trouble shooters (at logica CMG) in holland. He has to deal with large corporate databases. From banks, phone companies, shell, etc. You would not believe the amount of rubbish out there. About 90% of all developers are just barely able to write something that more or less works. Looking beyond that is too much for them. A lot of high talk, no meat. A lot of these guys are just repeating what they know and believe without any factual knowledge of the underlying truth.

Don't get me wrong. SPs do have use. They are great for securing when you need it, and for performance (pre compiled plan, though that can bite you as well). But to force people to use SP does not prove of much understanding of its application. You simply have to know when one or the other makes more sence in a given situation from a technical POV, and not because some idiot tells you.

Walter,