In any database comes a time where a developer or administrator will have to make manual changes to the data through an ad-hoc script. It can be straight sql or

In any database comes a time where a developer or administrator will have to make manual changes to the data through an ad-hoc script. It can be straight sql or perl/php/ruby thing. The easier you'll make it on him not to cause horrible corruptions in the data by forgetting to update that additional table that depends on whatever he is updating - the better life will be. Triggers, foreign keys and constraints are all excellent ways to do just that.