Re: [GENERAL] primary key and existing unique fields

[Sally Sally]

I think the same too but sometimes it seems in the real world performance is 
given more value than a properly designed db. Or the long term flexiblity is 
not taken into account given the short term requirements.
regards
Sally

From: Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Sally Sally <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] primary key and existing unique fields
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:44:00 -0500
On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 14:31:32 +0000,
  Sally Sally <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Dawid,
> I am interested in the first point you made that:
> having varchar(12) in every referencing table, takes more storage
> space.
> The thing is though, if I have a serial primary key then it would be an
> additional column. Or you are saying the space taken by a VARCHAR(12) 
field
> is more than two INT fields? ( or is it the fact that when it is 
referenced
> it will appear several times?) I guess the reason I am resisting the 
idea
> of an additional primary key field is to avoid the additional lookup in
> some queries. Perhaps it's a minor almost irrelevant performance factor.

I think it is better to worry about what is going to make it easiest to
have clean data and to support future changes than worry about performance.
Over the long run hardware is cheaper than people.
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
_________________________________________________________________
Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and 
more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster