In a new post to her blog today Lorna Mitchell has a few suggestions for handling database patching when your application starts to outgrow its simple roots.

One problem that seems to need solving too often is how to keep databases in sync across different platforms, different developers working on a project, and deploying database changes along with code changes. There are lots of ways of approaching this, none of them are really excellent however and personally I tend to err on the side of simple being better. Fewer dependencies means a solution more likely to work on every platform (and no additional complications for the live platform). Usually this means patch files of some kind.

She outlines her usual approach - creating a table with metadata and version information, export the structure of the database in push it into a row, creating numbered patch files and keeping it all stashed away in versioned source control for easy access. Check out the comments for some more interesting ideas.