Re: Integrity on large sites

Not using foreign keys makes sense for some applications. WORM
applications where you know you are loading accurate data, for
example. Or times when it doesn't matter if an application bug
corrupts your data.

But if you care about your data and if you can't trust your client to
edit it correctly, you'd better have referential integrity. Size is
irrelevant to that equation.

On May 22, 2007, at 7:12 PM, Naz Gassiep wrote:

> I'm working in a project at the moment that is using MySQL, and people
> keep making assertions like this one:
>
> "*Really* big sites don't ever have referential integrity. Or if
> the few
> spots they do (like with financial transactions) it's implemented
> on the
> application level (via, say, optimistic locking), never the
> database level."
>
> This sounds to me like MySQLish. A large DB working with no RI would
> give me nightmares. Is it really true that large sites turn RI off to
> improve performance, or is that just a MySQL thing where it gets
> turned
> off just because MySQL allows you to turn it off and improve
> performance? Can you even turn RI off in PostgreSQL? Does Oracle,
> DB2 or
> MSSQL allow you to turn it off? Am I just being naive in thinking that
> everyone runs their DBs with RI in production?
>
> - Naz
>
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