[AccessD] OT: The Great Primary Debate

Yep.  Anytime I have a table with a  compound-field unique key, I also
have an autonumber PK.  Of course, I usually have an autonumber PK
anyhow, but ... <VBG>

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: Gustav Brock [mailto:gustav at cactus.dk] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 10:53 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: The Great Primary Debate


Hi Martin

One way to explain it to illustrate the consequences ... an accounting
app I examined the other day is often forced to use five-field compound
indexes due to the lack of a single key; it's awful.

/gustav


> I was taking day one of a 4 day Programming SQL Server 2000 course 
> today. 8 Oracle programmers moving to SQL Server, 6 of our Ingres 
> programmers moving to SQL Server.

> Came to the section on Table Design. I said use an Identity value for 
> the PK on the table - all h%ll brooke loose for the next hour as the 
> great debate happened live in person. Pity JC wasnt there to back me 
> up (<: Was split between the younger developers who supported the use 
> of the ID column and the older developers and DBAs who use natural 
> keys. Almost a 50//50 split on age lines maybe reflecting different 
> attitutes to design. Took me about 20mins with one of the older guys 
> to explain how the relationship was maintained using Idt IDs as 
> opposed to his staff number. He seemed to have real problems getting 
> the concept.

> Martin

-- 
_______________________________________________
AccessD mailing list
AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com