Not using foreign keys makes sense for some applications. WORM
applications where you know you are loading accurate data, for
example. Or times when it doesn't matter if an application bug
corrupts your data.
But if you care about your data and if you can't trust your client to
edit it correctly, you'd better have referential integrity. Size is
irrelevant to that equation.
On May 22, 2007, at 7:12 PM, Naz Gassiep wrote:
I'm working in a project at the moment that is using MySQL, and people
keep making assertions like this one:
"*Really* big sites don't ever have referential integrity. Or if
the few
spots they do (like with financial transactions) it's implemented
on the
application level (via, say, optimistic locking), never the
database level."
This sounds to me like MySQLish. A large DB working with no RI would
give me nightmares. Is it really true that large sites turn RI off to
improve performance, or is that just a MySQL thing where it gets
turned
off just because MySQL allows you to turn it off and improve
performance? Can you even turn RI off in PostgreSQL? Does Oracle,
DB2 or
MSSQL allow you to turn it off? Am I just being naive in thinking that
everyone runs their DBs with RI in production?
- Naz
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