how does the database fit in?

[pigsie]

Hi

I hope this is the right forum for this post. When building applications which involve storing and updating information what is the best approach?

How do you handle the updating and synchronization for objects whose fields are populated from the database? Do you update the database everytime you update a class member? WHat if the data is manipulated outside of the application?

Also do you typically tend to load commonly used data in objects and store them in the application object to improve performance?

Thanks
Kola