Re: Natural keys vs Aritficial Keys

--CELKO-- <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote:

>>> And I'm sure there are lots of small businesses that don't have a DUNS. <<
>
>You can get one for free. In the commercial world, this is like those
>website that tell people to get a free email when they need a customer
>id. I had to get one as an individual when I taught classes at
>DELL.
And it's not very common up here in Canada. No one has ever asked me for my DUNS.

>>> So you're going to build an app with 100 forms using a text editor?   I'm not. <<
>
>I don't understand that comment. Since I am the database guy, I don't
>build application code at all!

Multi column keys are significantly more work to use when building an app. At least they certainly are in Access.

>My job is to assure that
>
>1) the database is accurate and current internally (hence constraints
>and business rules are my job)
>2) able to communicate with external data sources (hence the need for
>industry standards. subscriptions to external data sources)
>3) able to present data to the front end (report server, analytic
>server, host programs regardless of language)

Whereas I do everything. Find out what the users want, design the tables, fields (columns), indexes and relationships and create the application.

Tony

-- 
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
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