Re: Natural keys vs Aritficial Keys

Bob Badour wrote:
> Dave Hughes wrote:
>
<snip>

>> Yes - Django's default ORM also defaults to auto-generated surrogate
>> keys for everything (it can handle non-auto-generated keys, but only
>> with a single column). However, many of the Python based web
>> environments are now moving to the rather impressive SQLAlchemy ORM
>> which handles "natural" keys just fine (including composites). I think
>> I'm right in saying Pylons and Turbogears already default to
>> SQLAlchemy. So, it's not all doom and gloom for those who prefer
>> natural keys :)
>
> But how many "Great Blunders" does the SQLAlchemy ORM make?

I suspect I'd have to do a bit of revision to properly answer this, but the following quote from the blurb on SQLAlchemy's homepage suggests to me that it at least provides the means to avoid the first Blunder:

"Map objects to not just tables but to any arbitrary join or select statement"

Which is not to say that people won't Blunder when using it, but at least it doesn't force one to Blunder (which I suspect is all one can reasonably ask of an ORM).

Cheers,

Dave. Received on Fri May 22 2009 - 20:19:47 CEST