On Thu, 01 Jun 2006, Chris Browne wrote: > Celko is decidedly *NOT* promoting the notion that you should use a > 100 byte long "natural key." > > Jamie's comments of "Orthodox versus Reform" seem reasonably > appropriate in outlining something of the difference between the > positions.
Just to be clear, that was all I was trying to do. I probably should have mentioned that any attempt to use such an attribute as a PK should be met with a baseball bat or other shillelagh-ish implement, but was interrupted several times during that email drafting. > I may not care for doing this; you may not either; a company that > builds auto parts that they want to sell into the automotive industry > may care about standardizing their part IDs quite a lot. This is another important point. In some situations, a rigid data model can be a godsend to coders. If you happen to sit in such an enviable position, I would encourage you to take advantage of it. (This doesn't mean picking bad keys, of course.) I liberally sprinkle surrogate keys around simply because most of the projects I work on have transient requirements, so spontaneous rejiggery and various pokery are both commonplace, and SKs provide "enough" data integrity that the cost/benefit curve seems to peak there. Were I doing projects that had longer release cycles, I'd re-evaluate that position, and likely see a marginal reduction in bugs. None of this should be taken as bashing Celko - he's a smart man and an excellent source of advice. -j -- Jamie Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] When I talked to the president, he was loaded. - Brent Scowcroft, Kissinger's assistant, 10/11/73 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq