In the databases I've worked with extensively (PostgreSQL and, somewhat in the past, Oracle) Store Procedures are routinely versioned controlled as part of the application, just these bits of code are in a different language than the rest.
The creation of functions/procedures is not tied to state of the database in quite the same way as tables are; the functions/procedures, where they care about the data, do need to recognize the table structure and changes to that structure, but that's no different than any other of the application code which makes use of the data in the database.
I think where many people get caught up on this is that they do something like migrations to get code, including procedural code, into the database... but that's not the only game in town. And really, given what's possible with databases today, I'm not sure migrations are even the best way anymore.
Consider a tool like: http://sqitch.org/ which facilitates not treating stored procedures as migrations, but rather as individual files which change just like any other code.
There are ways to accomplish having good version control on the table/structure side as well, which again, is something you lose with the migration tools I've worked with.
In the databases I've worked with extensively (PostgreSQL and, somewhat in the past, Oracle) Store Procedures are routinely versioned controlled as part of the application, just these bits of code are in a different language than the rest.
The creation of functions/procedures is not tied to state of the database in quite the same way as tables are; the functions/procedures, where they care about the data, do need to recognize the table structure and changes to that structure, but that's no different than any other of the application code which makes use of the data in the database.
I think where many people get caught up on this is that they do something like migrations to get code, including procedural code, into the database... but that's not the only game in town. And really, given what's possible with databases today, I'm not sure migrations are even the best way anymore.
Consider a tool like: http://sqitch.org/ which facilitates not treating stored procedures as migrations, but rather as individual files which change just like any other code.
There are ways to accomplish having good version control on the table/structure side as well, which again, is something you lose with the migration tools I've worked with.
Anyway, I just don't buy this argument.