"Scott Ribe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> ..so the only question is: >> >> drop the the serials as PKs and just use short text handles? our >> database size is arround 290 mb. there shouldn't be speed issues as long >> as proper indexes exit, right? some of the conditions are dynamic >> though, so there can't be an proper index in any case. any other >> concerns? > > Someone (a manager) somewhere (probably marketing) sometime (when you > least > expect it) will demand that those short text names be changed, possibly > for > a completely irrational reason. I know there are still text books that > claim > that artificial keys are evil for some inscrutable reason, but hard > experience has taught me to never, ever, under any circumstance, make a > primary key out of data that comes from humans, and to be very suspicious > of > using data that will be visible to humans.
This is my experience also. But opinions vary, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a further post from someone which argues the exact opposite. :-) > > > -- > Scott Ribe > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.killerbytes.com/ > (303) 665-7007 voice > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? > > http://archives.postgresql.org > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
