Re: Normalization, Natural Keys, Surrogate Keys

From: drop the numbers <Paul>
Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 18:04:05 GMT
Message-ID: <MPG.1753053482c33da6989710_at_news.easynews.com>

In article <3CE583F3.7F5D20D5_at_exesolutions.com>, dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com says...
> If I didn't get paid so darned much money dumping surrogate keys and cleaning
> up the messes I'd actually be upset. And not once has there been a resulting
> performance problem that warranted recreating a surrogate key and instituting
> a fake primary key using a unique index with a not null constraint.

        The SSN is a surrogate key itself, and a BAD one at that. There are duplicates out there. It is "just as good" as a surrogate. In fact, it might be worse, because at least I can QA my surrogate, but I can't QA the government's surrogate for Person.

        Secondly, as someone else explained, the error you illustrate of duplication is NOT due to the use of a surrogate key, but of bad usage of integrity operations (checks, triggers or stored procedures) that would have prevented it.

(Any opinions expressed are strictly mine only and not my employer's)

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Paul Tiseo, Intermediate Systems Programmer Reply To: 123tiseo.paul_at_123mayo.edu (drop the numbers) Received on Mon May 20 2002 - 20:04:05 CEST