I think it is not really important whether storm creates the data tables, or whether it reacts to changes in tables made from outside. The latter is probably more useful. The important thing is that there be a single definition of the data, not two or three. A technique like Steven Waterbury mentions might be ideal. I looked at zope before discovering storm, but was unable to get my brain around it enough to actually use it. I have been lead to believe that other people have also found the learning curve for zope to be rather steep. Is zope.schema approachable for non-zope users? -- Vernon Cole