Darryl Collins
darryl at whittleconsulting.com.au
Tue Mar 11 19:14:01 CDT 2014
Sure, I can see value in that. Indeed I have even done exactly that before. The latest DB solution I have built does this on the fly. The imported data only has natural keys. After it is imported I build the unique tables with numerical PK's and then reproduce all the text only tables with the keys. Fun stuff, and it does force you to understand exactly what the source data is and how it is related to all the other data tables. That's my experience anyway. Cheers Darryl -----Original Message----- From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mark Breen Sent: Wednesday, 12 March 2014 11:06 AM To: Discussion concerning MS SQL Server Subject: [dba-SQLServer] Design first without Id column - was Arthurs thread Hi Arthur and everyone else, Changing the subject slightly here May I draw everyones attention to a fascinating concept I saw in a presentation I had two years ago at an SQLSaturday event. A brilliant database lady, whose name escapes me tortured the room by challenging our existing methods of doing things. I will not list all the 'rules' that she demonstrated could and should be broken but eventually she got onto the natural / artificial pk design. She eventually admitted that she always uses an artificial key for implementation but she completes all her db designs initially without and artificial keys. By building a preliminary db without any Id cols, she instructed that it forces us to really identify what data is being stored and related in in each table. By doing a design without the Id columns, you need to get your data correct. Once you are done, then she adds in the Ids and git's to coding. I am not suggesting stop using Ids, but it is a neat idea in the design to attempt it without those columns. Theory is that when you cannot, you possible do not fully have the db design correct yet. Of any interest? Mark On 11 March 2014 19:32, Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com> wrote: > Well, my principal mission has been achieved! Said mission was not to > prove or even posit my point, but to kick the ashes and see whether > the embers are still burning. And they are! Nothing like a hot topic > to awake the sleeping dragons. > > Happy to see that you're all alive and well. > > A. > > _______________________________________________ > dba-SQLServer mailing list > dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver > http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > _______________________________________________ dba-SQLServer mailing list dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver http://www.databaseadvisors.com