Visual Basic Feng Shui - Are you a Neanderthal SQL Programmer?

Thursday, October 25, 2007

I generally can appreciate what Joe Celko brings to the table in terms of SQL programming and theory, but a recent article of his had me scratching my head, even considering his sometimes Ivory Tower approaches.

The article is at Intelligent Enterprise here.

What caught my eye was the following paragraph. He's discussing his own classification system of keys in databases and one of the types is described thusly:

3. An "exposed physical locator" is not based on attributes in the data model and is exposed to the user. There is no reasonable way to predict it or verify it, since it usually comes from the physical state of the hardware at the time of data insertion. The system obtains a value thru some physical process in the storage hardware totally unrelated to the logical data model " for example, IDENTITY columns or other proprietary, non-relational auto-numbering devices.

Technically, these are not really keys at all, since they are attributes of the physical storage and are not even part of the logical data model. But they are handy for lazy, non-RDBMS programmers who do not want to research or think! This is the worst way to program in SQL

So, to paraphrase, he's saying that if you use IDENTITY columns in your database schemas, you're "lazy" and "do not want to research or think"

Uhuh.

So how about it, you lazy, slovenly, heathen SQL programmers out there that dare to use Identity columns?

And in case it's not obvious, I can't disagree more with Celko on this point $\:\-\)$