Re: FW: Surrogate keys (Was: enums)

Dann,

> The primary key should be immutable, meaning that its value should not be
> changed during the course of normal operations of the database.

Why?   I don't find this statement to be self-evident.   Why would we have ON 
UPDATE CASCADE if keys didn't change sometimes?

> At any rate, the use of natural keys is a mistake made by people who have
> never had to deal with very large database systems.

Oh, I guess I'm dumb then.  The biggest database system I ever had to deal 
with was merely 5 TB ...

Anyway, my opinion on this, in detail, will be on the ITToolBox blog.  You can 
argue with me there.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco