RE: Database design question

I think the birth date is a lousy idea. My mother-in-law still questions
her birthdate. The birth certificate doesn't match the family bible.
Since they are southern fundamentalists which grew up without indoor
plumbing let alone TV's and whatnot you can bet which one they put more
faith in. The doctor was obviously drunk when he filled out the
certificate.

I can see some rare instances of having an additional unique key, such as
preventing double booking of reservations, I'd be hard pressed of why no
primary key.

That being said however, our ERP package has no primary nor unique keys on
the underlying table. They have a key on some of the logicals but do not
specify unique. In theory you could have duplicate keys but their
programming logic doesn't permit it (from transactions done within the
programming logic).

I think the thing was 40 years ago there was certain corruption which was
easier to recover from if your table did not have any keys on it. Don't
laugh, I think that is really the reason.

It does have some benefits. All updates are done via the logicals. And
the logicals never do a "Select *" but instead pick the columns desired.
This makes it easier to add new columns.


Rob Berendt