Posted by Ami Levin on Tuesday, 31 July 2012
"If you walk into a room full of DBAs or DB developers and you feel like having the same kind of fun as setting fire to a dry hayfield, just ask this question: “What’s a better design, using natural keys or artificial keys?” Satisfaction guaranteed.
When I started to study database design, this was one of the first hot controversies I encountered. If you Google the phrase “natural vs. artificial keys,” you’ll come up with more than 150 million results, including endless debates, numerous articles, blog posts with passionate replies, long theoretical and practical arguments, and even the occasional profanity."
The above paragraph opened my chapter in the MVP Deep Dives 2 book. If you don't own this book yet, don't wait... But if you are interested in hearing some of my thoughts on the issue, you are welcome to watch a recording of a session I delivered last week on the subject as part of PASS Data Architecture Virtual Chapter. You can find the recording and links to the materials here.
Note that the Live Meeting recording works on IE only (at least on my PC...).
Who can tell? Perhaps things won’t look as stark afterward. Let me know what you think...
