Jim C. Nasby <jnasby <at> pervasive.com> writes:
> a) the optimizer does a really poor job on multi-column index statistics
So it should be fixed?
And there are a *lot* of singular, natural keys.
> b) If each parent record will have many children, the space savings from
> using a surrogate key can be quite large
Not such a common case.
> c) depending on how you view things, putting actual keys all over the
> place is denormalized
How come? Never!
> Generally, I just use surrogate keys for everything unless performance
> dictates something else.
What I am proposing is the reverse: use natural keys for everything unless
performance dictates something else.
In support of my PoV:
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/soup/archives/007327.asp?rss=1