Re: Normalization, Natural Keys, Surrogate Keys

From: Daryl Richter <drichter_at_pwrteam.com>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 18:46:55 GMT
Message-ID: <ofew17gl.fsf_at_pwrteam.com>


c_cozianu_at_hotmail.com (Costin Cozianu) writes:

[_excellent_ discussion snipped]  

> No, using surrogate keys is terrible for a logical design and the
> flexibility comes only with sacrficing data quality goals. The only
> considerations that justify surrogate keys, is the inability of RDBMS
> to efficiently manipulate at the physical level (dsik layout) keys
> that are multiple columns and big in size. Also, no database that I
> know of has an otpion like ON UPDATE CASCADE for foreign key to
> allow for update propagations.
>
> But feel free to disagree.
>
> Costin

FWIW, MS SQL Server 2000 supports ON UPDATE CASCADE.

-- 

Daryl Richter
Lead Programmer, Exelon Power Team

http://www.exeloncorp.com/powerteam
Received on Fri May 31 2002 - 20:46:55 CEST

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