Re: FOREIGN KEYS vs PERFORMANCE

Thanks for all responses! I agree with most of you, and say that the RI is
best maintened by Database ! Performance must be improved in other ways
(indexes, hardware, etc)!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com>
To: "Craig A. James" <cjames(at)modgraph-usa(dot)com>
Cc: "PFC" <lists(at)peufeu(dot)com>; "Michael Glaesemann" <grzm(at)myrealbox(dot)com>;
"Rodrigo Sakai" <rodrigo(dot)sakai(at)zanthus(dot)com(dot)br>;
<pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2006 5:59 PM
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] FOREIGN KEYS vs PERFORMANCE

> On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 10:36:28AM -0700, Craig A. James wrote:
> > Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > >>1. You have only one application that modifies the data. (Otherwise,
you
> > >>have to duplicate the rules across many applications, leading to a
> > >>code-maintenance nightmare).
> > >
> > >You forgot something:
> > >
> > >1a: You know that there will never, ever, ever, ever, be any other
> > >application that wants to talk to the database.
> > >
> > >I know tons of people that get burned because they go with something
> > >that's "good enough for now", and then regret that decision for years
to
> > >come.
> >
> > No, I don't agree with this. Too many people waste time designing for
> > "what if..." scenarios that never happen. You don't want to be dumb and
> > design something that locks out a foreseeable and likely future need,
but
> > referential integrity doesn't meet this criterion. There's nothing to
keep
> > you from changing from app-managed to database-managed referential
> > integrity if your needs change.
>
> In this case your argument makes no sense, because you will spend far
> more time re-creating RI capability inside an application than if you
> just use what the database offers natively.
>
> It's certainly true that you don't want to over-engineer for no reason,
> but many times choices are made to save a very small amount of time or
> hassle up-front, and those choices become extremely painful later.
> --
> Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
> Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
> vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
>
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