Stuart McLachlan
stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Thu Mar 3 21:46:35 CST 2011
If you chose to use an auto-increment pointer thingy as the primary key for relationship purposes, then by definition - it is a PK. If Jim choses to use one real world value or a composite collection of them as the primary key for relationship purposes, then that too is a PK. The PK is whatever *you* chose as the "primary" way to uniquely identify records. The choice between the two ways of doing so comes down to a personal decision by the designer. Neither way is "correct" or "the only way". All I know is that in my experience, I've seen complications/problems caused by using natural keys as the PK, I've never had a problem with an autonumber so that's what I chose to use. -- Stuart On 3 Mar 2011 at 21:44, jwcolby wrote: > AFAICT there is no debate other than what to call the auto-increment > pointer thingy. As soon as we stop calling it a PK Jim seems to be > happy. > > John W. Colby > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > On 3/3/2011 9:22 PM, Michael Mattys wrote: > > > > Education. Isn't that when we graduate into the rest of life? > > I forget who polluted the world, was it the uneducated? > > > > Can we get back to the debate, please? > > > > Michael R Mattys > > Business Process Developers > > www.mattysconsulting.com > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >