Managing code versions, unit testing, building releases from a branch,
etc… are generally well understood processes where you’ll find
numerous organizations following similar practices.
Now go to the database schema and every company seems to have a
different home grown aproach to managing the database schema, migrating
changes, restoring older versions, etc.. Also, every solution I’ve ever
seen has involved updating the overall schema for fresh installations
as well as writing a migration SQL script for existing schemas. Not so
with Rails migrations!
I was blown away with this simple and elegant solution where you do the
migration to update an existing schema and then your overall schema
(for new installations) is automatically updated. This video demoing Rails migrations is a must see in my opinion!
Some other interesting reading on the subject: Robby on Rails, Buck Blogs, ScottStuff, API docs, and Gluttonous