I came across a system which used several databases; it seems the original designer had grouped "functional groups" of tables into databases or something. About 10 different databases; several tables have their own databases.
Since all tables are part of the same application, I would have used a single database. Implementing Referential Integrity in such a system is sheer madness - it would have to be redesigned (so that all tables go into the same database). The application in question doesn't use RI, as far as I know; to be more precise, it doesn't use the built-in RI-options provided by Visual FoxPro.
I don't have contact with the original programmers, to listen to their reasoning, but it seems to me this is just a beginner's mistake. Or is there any real benefit in thus dividing tables for an application into several databases?
Difference in opinions hath cost many millions of lives: for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh; whether whistling be a vice or a virtue; whether it be better to kiss a post, or throw it into the fire... (from Gulliver's Travels)
