Guidelines to a decent support of surrogate key implementation
From: Cimode <cimode_at_hotmail.com>
Date: 24 May 2007 00:58:51 -0700
Message-ID: <1179993531.222375.136310_at_o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
Lately, I have brought emphasis on the subject of concatenated keys vs addition of column. I have noticed then that the thread quickly turned to a debate about the failure of current dbms's to bring a decent support of surrogate key implementation. From what I observe 3 line of thoughts trends appear:
LINE3> People who think there is nothing wrong with current surrogate key implementations
Date: 24 May 2007 00:58:51 -0700
Message-ID: <1179993531.222375.136310_at_o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
Lately, I have brought emphasis on the subject of concatenated keys vs addition of column. I have noticed then that the thread quickly turned to a debate about the failure of current dbms's to bring a decent support of surrogate key implementation. From what I observe 3 line of thoughts trends appear:
LINE1> People who think that surrogate key should be an internal physical mechanism to the dbms and invisible to designer who could focus on the logical selection of primary keys
LINE2> People who think that a trdbms should allow the designer to have some controlLINE3> People who think there is nothing wrong with current surrogate key implementations
I personally belong to first category.
What do you think are the Pro/Cons of each approach? Here is mine:
LINE1>
PRO Designer can focus better on logical design. Less error prone in key implementation Independence between the logical and physical layer is implementedat design time.
CON Surrogate key implementation becoming internal addressing pointers,users can not find any more familiarity in surrogate keys. Assuming familiarity is an advantage, that would become a CON.
LINE2>
PRO Familiarity CONS Introducing a part of subjectivity in key generation process LINE3> PRO ? CONS Keys implemented are not primary key implementations Product oriented bias for definition of keys All consequences arising for not having identity
Thank you for bringing your insights onto this theme. Thank you for respecting the frame/structure for conciseness's sake.
Regards all... Received on Thu May 24 2007 - 09:58:51 CEST