In the enterprise world (at least in the Microsoft world) we have tools to manage these sorts of things. The one I'm currently using even for my small pet proje

In the enterprise world (at least in the Microsoft world) we have tools to manage these sorts of things. The one I'm currently using even for my small pet projects is called SQL Server Data Tools[1]. You basically just have to modify the original table creation scripts (add a column or whatever) and it actually generates all the change scripts for you. Even if the change is complex it handles making temp tables and transferring the data into the new table. It also notifies you and lets you handle cases where the change may lead to data loss. I guess my point is that the SQL world is still innovating but it doesn't get that much attention. Unless I have a specific use-case for storing similar entities together with different fields then a schemaless DB is not the right tool for the job. [1]http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/tools.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/tools.aspx