Re: Separate PK in Jxn Tbl?

>> Do you mean a bit like there are ISBN-10 and ISBN-13. Should I avoid using them and roll my own 'BookID'? <<

LOL! The US recently converted from the old UPC codes which were 10 digits to the 13 digit EAN system (ISBN13 was only a small part of this) and will convert to the 15 digit GTIN in the near future.

Yet somehow we survived and nobody started printing their own bar code labels again (yes, I am old enough to remember retail without UPC on the packages).

The "immutable data" fallacy is that the identifier must get me to the actual entity when I use it; it is free to mutate as it wishes as long as it does its job. I have seen a security system in which the user id is changing every five minutes or faster to prevent hacking. It works great, but requires a memory stick in your PC to keep up with things.

The advantage of standardized encodings is that I have a migration path that is sponsored by an entire industry instead of having to do everything myself. Received on Thu Jan 31 2008 - 22:08:30 CET