Re: Avoiding surrogate keys

On Wed, 2010-04-21 at 15:18 -0400, Merlin Moncure wrote:

> Natural keys:
> *) force formal relationships into your key design (this is good)
> *) Make your database MUCH easier to follow, browse, and understand
> *) in particular cases allow you to skip joins
> *) will make your indexes fatter (this is not good)
> *) can be a pain if your keys are updated frequently
> *) can be a major pain if your key changes in structure (adds a field,
> or changes in type)
>
> Surrogate keys:
> *) Give you faster joins, but more of them (this is a win/loss
> depending on circumstances)

Kind of... natural keys can remove the need for the join in the first
place, which is certainly faster than joining :P

Joshua D. Drake

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