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