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A comment on Unnatural Keys – Nature doesn’t come with identifiers.

Re:Unnatural Keys – Nature doesn’t come with identifiers by praptak on Sunday May 28, 2023 @05:44AM (#36102562)
Slap a synthetic key on everything, you probably overestimate how bad it is to have multiple records for "the same thing".

Even if it is indeed bad, it's probably unrealistic to expect to never let it slip on entry (however good the natural keys might be). Maybe it makes more sense to incorporate deduplication into the design right from the start.

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Re:Unnatural Keys – Nature doesn’t come with identifiers by jack_squat on Sunday May 28, 2023 @11:57AM (#36105189)
When you use a surrogate key, you should still put a unique constraint on an alternate key. Multiple records for the same thing is a fundamental problem in a database.
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