Re: Database design issue: seems really bad, yet I'm having trouble coming up with anything better

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 11:17 AM, Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Natural vs surrogate (vs artificial [see
http://www.informationweek.com/software/information-management/celko-on-sql-natural-artificial-and-surrogate-keys-explained/d/d-id/1059246?
])

is pretty much a religious war :)

I should have waited for your post before rambling on!

I agree that artificial keys for this particular use case (the
"association tables" as you called them) are especially pointless,
even if they confer advantages in other use cases.

But I'll admit there is some value to just "sticking with the
standard", even when that isn't optimal in some academic sense. If
the shop has an always-use-artificial-keys-for-everything policy, then
the disruption of omitting those keys for a few tables may not be
worth the savings. I don't think the superfluous keys are *actively
harmful* enough to make an exception to the shop standard.

John Y.