[development] Form field maxlengths vs. database field sizes

[vlado]

> Ruby on Rails's ActiveRecord does this database->form mapping amazingly well. 
> We should take some of their concepts into Drupal, and I therefor encourage 
> everyone to do a 20 minute quickstart in RoR development. Just to get the 
> feeling of how Drupal /could be/ in this database mapping smartness!
>   http://ar.rubyonrails.com/docs #tutorials 

schemeql (schematics.sf.net) goes one further - you forget the db
(nearly) completely. You just use the language (php) to define your
structures and it is automagially converted into an appropriate db
call(s). Combined  with the "other" half - a decent serialisation of the
data into xhtml, via templates or whatever and you have everything
you'll ever need.

But is it really appropriate? Are we grown up enough?