On 17/10/2006, at 6:44 AM, Norman Palardy wrote:
Many times normalizaton practices would dictate that you have a
possibly meaningless unique key.
Sometimes there is data that is unique per person that makes a nice
key (social insurance number, employee number, etc)
Just wanted to chip in here, as using SSN is a favourite American trick.
1) it breaks when you have to deal with foreigners
2) it is often broken at data entry - whilst you can compel people to
enter an SSN you can't always compile them to enter a CORRECT one.
Highly recommended: "Database Design for Mere Mortals"
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