Re: Primary Key

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007, Merlin Moncure wrote:

> the sad fact is that sequences have made developers lazy

Nah, developers were lazy long before that.  If you ask Larry Wall it's a
virtue.

I gave up on this argument ten years ago after a long battle with
well-known natural key zealot Joe Celko wore me out.  He published one of
his many articles making a case for them using an example from the
automotive industry.  Only problem was, the unique identifier he suggested
wasn't.  At the auto parts company I worked for, I had just spent many
monotonous days contorting keys to work around a problem caused by the
original designer there, who misunderstood some nuances of how the "Big
Three" auto manufacturers assigned part numbers the same way Celko did.

He doesn't use that example anymore but still misses the point I tried to
make.  The ability of the world to invalidate the assumptions that go into
natural key assignment are really impressive.  I particularly enjoy that
so many systems are built presuming that the Social Security number for a
person is involatile that this topic comes up in their FAQ about identify
theft:  http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10064.html

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD