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From: sad <sad@bankir.ru>
Organization: IT
To: "Iain" <iain@mst.co.jp>, <josh@agliodbs.com>,
	"Karsten Hilbert" <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net>, <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: surrogate key or not?
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 15:13:37 +0400
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	<200407231020.59843.josh@agliodbs.com>
	<002801c472fc$be62af40$7201a8c0@mst1x5r347kymb>
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Message-Id: <200407261513.38001.sad@bankir.ru>

hello

> This reminds me of a project I worked on many years ago, I was pretty much
> fresh out of university writing a system for a large medical practice -
> itwas principally for accounting purposes. I made lots of suggestions like
> Josh's, only to get replies like Karsten's. I the progammer wanted to
> codify everything so as to enable data analysis (ie linking complaints and
> diagnosis, etc) but the doctors wern't interested. They just wanted to
> write free text comments. And the reason for it (as far as I can tell) is
> the distinction between general practice and reseach (such as
> epidemiology). So (GPs) are not so much searching for new knowlege in the=
ir
> patients records, as applying the knowlege gained from research (done by
> researchers) to treat individual patients.

Here the situation quite similar, a customer dictate drives the practice fa=
r=20
far from logic.

EVERY database i had desined in few years have been turned into a container=
 of=20
textual MEMOs completely unstructured. (because of patches and makeups)

USER DO NOT WANT TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR INPUT.

i do not know how are you all programming, really hope you are in defferent=
=20
circumstances. Here a customer itself is a user and itself is a [man who=20
formulate a problem] then every stupid idea to simplify input immediately=
=20
turns to an urgent official order to do.

Sorry. That is my work.

Thank you all again for very usefull discussion on Surrogate Keys.