Re: design question

On Nov 5, 1:17 pm, "Walter Mitty" <wami..._at_verizon.net> wrote:
> "Ed Prochak" <edproc..._at_gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:98c0f37a-3594-4158-9e7a-c525b9e50df7_at_p10g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Oct 28, 3:06 am, robu..._at_gmail.com wrote:
>
> > Walter Mitty wrote:
> > > <robu..._at_gmail.com> wrote in message
> > > Are you sure you don't mean "primary keys made up by composing several
> > > foreign keys"? Just a guess on my part, since I don't really know what
> > > you
> > > mean.
>
> > Sorry, I was in hurry so I was not very clear. I mean some people
> > prefer to use surrogate (primary) keys instead of natural composite
> > keys and then use foreign keys to surrogates just for making joins
> > "faster". A bad idea in my opinion...
> >I favor your view. There is a time and place for surrogates, but too
> >many jump to using ID columns as the PK right away.
>
> I also agree.  I only use ID columns for "entity tables" not "relationship
> tables".  And I only use them when there are no reliable natural keys
> available.

So aptly and simply put. Why this isn't at the top, printed in bold, of texts on the subject I have no idea. Received on Thu Nov 06 2008 - 17:39:26 CET