I have been programming since 1977, getting into the weeds with the Heathkit educational series on analog and digital technology including machine and assembler programming.  I have also programmed in...

I went back and re-read the original article to make sure my comments have not been off topic.  The title is provocative but missleading.  The opinion is really about using...

I agree that some developers do not understand natural keys.  I have had developers tell me that they can just use the surrogate key to get a specific row.  My...

Hi Nova.  I was loose with the words I chose.  Sorry.   On my last project, the one with no natural unique keys, the end users wanted to have the...

OH is actually an alfa surrogate for Ohio.  And SSN is a semi-arbitrary surrogate key that originally carried some geographic information but not so much any more.  Often businesses have...

I have climbed up on this soap box many times before and cannot resist this time.  I have been a database designer for Oracle and MS SQL Server for decades...