Cyberherbalist's Blog

The occasion for this post is a little contretemps I experienced on StackOverflow.com recently. The topic of this blog post is the question posed by acidZombie24, a member of StackOverflow, over 3 years ago. I was one of those who responded to the question. My answer was:

Databases don’t have keys, per se, but their constituent tables might. I assume you mean that, but just in case…

Anyway, tables with a large number of rows should absolutely have primary keys; tables with only a few rows don’t need them, necessarily, though they don’t hurt. It depends upon the usage and the size of the table. Purists will put primary keys in every table. This is not wrong; and neither is omitting PKs in small tables.

Note that the statement “Database don’t have keys…” refers to the original text of the question title, which was subsequently changed by an edit.

This answer did not make much of an impression on anyone (the questioner never marked any of the answers as Accepted and nobody gave me any upvotes), until just the other day. And this was a downvote (which subtracts reputation points). If warranted, I don’t mind a downvote, if it is a legitimate beef with my answer, but given the downvoter’s comment I thought it unwarranted. He commented on his downvote, and a little conversation ensued:

jmoreno: A single row table doesn’t need a primary key, anything else should have one defined to avoid duplicates. – Jun 21 at 0:57

Cyberherbalist: Yes, generally, but business rules determine whether duplicates are to be permitted — it is not inconceivable that duplicate entries in a table might not only be permissible, but expected. It depends upon what is being stored, and what use is made of it. BTW thanks for the rep hit — this answer doesn’t actually contradict the accepted answer. Your absolutism is noted. – Jun 21 at 17:15

jmoreno: If you’re storing exact duplicates, you’re storing the wrong thing. As for the rep hit, remove the slam at people that think that every table should have a PK, and I’ll remove it. – Jun 21 at 18:28

I was a little puzzled about the reference to my supposed “slam” at people who think that every table should have a PK. I looked over my answer and comments to others’ answers for any insults and did not see any. Unless by “slam” he meant the term “purist”? Perhaps he thought this was intended as an insult? It wasn’t so intended — heck, I am a purist about certain things, and I think I’m justified in those cases, and accept that differences of opinion are natural consequences of free speech. In fact, I am a purist when it comes to people trying to bully me around, and thus I will not remove the “slam.” I will simply wear the loss of 2 reputation points as a badge of obstinacy! No problemo.

It just so happens that at the moment I am working on a little utility at work which accesses a table that has no Primary Key. And that was not due to oversight by our typically conscientious and highly competent Data Administration staff. In this case, the table stores rows which, once inserted, are never updated or deleted. Our DA staff are really in love with “natural keys” (sometimes to a fault) as Primary Keys, and if they had thought a PK was necessary, then By Golly that’s we would have gotten, LOL. But this is the table:


CREATE TABLE [dbo].[agency_message](
[agency] [char](3) NOT NULL,
[subagency] [char](1) NOT NULL,
[effective_date] [smalldatetime] NOT NULL,
[message_text] [varchar](1000) NOT NULL,
[requested_by_user_name] [varchar](50) NOT NULL
)


The table is used as follows: when a user signs into the application, the system compares the system date/time with the “effective_date” in the table, and uses the row with the largest effective_date whose effective_date is not greater than the current system date/time, if one exists (the additional criterium is a match on agency/subagency).

The reason there is no primary key is because no row is ever updated or deleted once inserted, and we retain all rows for the sake of having a history of agency messages.

Given that our DA staff are, with all due respect and good will, purists of the best stripe, I consider that this table’s lacking of a primary key to be arguable evidence that tables do not always require primary keys. Business rules, as I said above, must prevail, and in this case, the Business Rules dictated the table structure.

Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen dismissed Mitt Romney’s reliance upon his wife’s advice vis-à-vis women’s issues because, in her words, Ann Romney “…has never worked a day in her life.”  Zing!

This very thoughtless complaint caused me much puzzlement, since in my observation those women who choose to stay home and be full-time Moms don’t spend the bulk of their time sitting around the house watching soap operas and eating bon-bons.  That’s me, I suppose, but if the stay-at-home Moms that Rosen knows are so relaxed, perhaps she needs to get out more.  Assuming that she knows any.   It seems that she ought to, since Rosen herself evidently raised two of her own children while in the midst of a career.

After this episode blew up in her face (both Ann Romney and the Obama White House commented on the inappropriateness of her remarks), Ms. Rosen backtracked a bit, but still maintained that Ann Romney could not be a good source of advice on the concerns of working women.

And here is where I get a little perplexed.  Does Ms. Rosen imagine that the number of stay-at-home Moms in the country is so negligible that Mitt Romney can afford to ignore their concerns, and only focus on the working mothers?  I would hope not, but if his wife had been a working mother, how would he gotten advice on the concerns of the stay-at-homes?  I suppose he could have found himself a second wife, one who stayed at home and raised the kids – although to the best of my knowledge that’s illegal – so that would have gotten him the benefit of advice on both sides?

This is the nutty part of it.  Romney has a wife who can advise him on issues related to her own experience as a woman, and as a woman who knows other women, he has the benefit of in-house expertise.  But who does he rely upon when it comes to the concerns of stay-at-home Dads?  Romney himself was a working Dad.  And what about the concerns of any other group who might have different perspectives?  Well, gee, I guess he has to rely upon people who have those perspectives – does Rosen imagine that Romney doesn’t have any such people in his campaign?  So what the HELL is wrong with Romney taking advantage of his own wife’s perspective just because she doesn’t happen to be both a working Mom?  Is he then supposed to IGNORE his own wife?

If I, as a Romney supporter, were I to claim that Barack Obama was in error in relying upon his own wife’s advice on women’s issues – because Michelle was a working Mom and could not relate to stay-at-home Moms – I’d bet that Rosen would have been all over me in a heartbeat. And she would have been justified!

Listening to the choir singing about Christ’s Atonement and Resurrection. With all his other disciples I proclaim: He is risen!

Earlier I said that there was this bad crashing problem with HamTechExam and that I better find it and fix it.  Well.

I cannot claim any heroism here.  It has taken me too long to get around to it, and the best thing I can say about the whole process is I don’t know how on earth this version of the app made it past the App Hub testers.  It couldn’t possibly have worked in the state it was in.  Maybe they were applying goose grease that day, and it just slipped in.

So, for what it’s worth (and for those who bought the app and couldn’t use it, that would be “not much”), the problem is fixed.  It is in certification and perhaps in a day or so it will be published.

All I can say is: my apologies.