>Hi,
>
>I don't know if this question was asked before (maybe even by me <g>) but I came across this issue again in converting from VFP data to SQL Server database.
>
>From the times when I was working in Clipper (and moved the app to VFP 6.0) I had a limit on number of handles could be used when opening tables, I have one table that is sort of a "container" for many "lookup" tables. The table structure is:
>
>TBL_ALIAS, C, 20
>ENTRY, C, 20
>DESCR, C, 40.
>
>By making different entries in TBL_ALIAS I can actually store many different (mostly lookup) tables in this "all-purpose" lookup table.
>
>When moving the app to SQL Server, creating another 20-25 small tables does not seem to be a problem. Hopefully it will not cause too much extra load on SQL Server (vs. having to deal with just one table).
>
>But my question is in general, what is a good practice - when creating a new application in SQL Server - using a separate table for each small lookup or combining them into one (as I did back in DOS times)?
>
>TIA

One.
Could you imagine what could happen if you need to change ONE field and you have 250 tables?
If you have proper index the query will be very fast.
(That is only for programmers point of view. DBAs could tell you more about statistic, maintenance, searching a value in ALL 250 tables etc :-)