Re: pervasiveness of surrogate (also called synthetic) keys

On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 01:29:31PM -0400, Jim Irrer wrote:

> common practice by an overwhelming margin in relational databases and
> that they are used in 99 percent of large installations.

94.68536% of all the claims I ever hear are obviously pulled out of
thin air.

What conclusion does your colleague want to draw from this
overwhelming (if perhaps statistically dubious) penetration?  Surely
the argument doesn't conclude, "Therefore we should do that too?"  I
seem to recall my mother making some remark about others jumping off
cliffs.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@crankycanuck.ca