I have web clients, desktop clients and some service applications connected to the database. And I'm not the only one writing applications on the database.

I have great difficulty when I need to change a stored procedure or table structure. I receive "object in use" errors and can't do anything at day time. I need to wait till about midnight and disconnect all clients. What could I do if the applications was used 24 hours a day continuously?

"Object in use" errors also block me when I need to do some index alterations. It would be great if I could modify or drop the index at daytime.

If it's possible to accept the changes even if the object is in use(stored procedure), it would make life much easier for developers like me.

Maybe the database can store the versions of stored procedures transparently? After modification, the object which was in used called next time, the client could use the modified version. And after a backup-restore, the old versions can be cleaned up?

Just some thoughts..