[AccessD] OT: The Great Primary Debate

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Tue Jun 1 16:40:05 CDT 2004


Another way to explain it is what happens when another field is required
to nail down uniqueness?  Start adding yet ANOTHER  FK field in all the
child tables.  YUK!

John W. Colby 
www.ColbyConsulting.com

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2004 2:53 PM
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






More information about the AccessD mailing list