Re: A real world example

Bob Badour wrote:
> [snip]
> By accepting his misuse of vocabulary, you encourage and legitimize the
> illegitimate while you interfere with communication and comprehension.
> Is it your goal to understand theory or to market the services of
> ignorants at the expense of their potential clients and other stakeholders?

Of course not. All corrections are welcomed Bob.

> [snip]
> I disagree that the concept of surrogate vs. natural is useful. A
> natural key is merely a familiar surrogate.

By this I am unclear what a natural key is a surrogate for. If you could spend some time expanding this definition, or referencing it, I'd appreciate it.

> The self-aggrandizing
> ignorant now has you redefining terms to make "surrogate" synonymous
> with "stable" and to make "natural" synonymous with "unstable".

Piffle, bob. I have not adopted any of his terminology in my effort to engage him, and you are misrepresenting my understanding of terms.

I view a surrogate as a 'substitute' for an unrecordable distinguishing attribute or set of attributes. This is the only logical definition that I am currently happy with. It does not require stability by definition, and I have only ever stated that stability is an attractive quality and hence often appropriate to good design. That's my current standpoint, and so that is what should or should not be criticized.

Nevertheless I do not think you understood where Brian's mistakes stem from, and that's what I have been looking for. It appears to be a fundamental difference in what he views _identity_ to be. If the OP does not maintain this basic concept of identity as we do (and as Codd and Liebniz did) then there is little point in debating natural or surrogate keys with him at all. The problem goes far deeper than that.

Jim. Received on Wed Aug 16 2006 - 18:41:08 CEST