« But many of them seem to write as if contents as determined by address ».

The content is not determined by the address and in fact, for those who are
using surrogate keys, the exact value of an address inside the database has
zero importance. To me, a table is a collection of jars, each jar has a
serial number and the information that must be stored into the database -
the information for which the database has been create - is put inside these
jars. Each jar has its own serial number; however, the exact value of this
serial number has not importance at all in regard to what is put inside the
jar and if copy the information from this database to another database, I
don't care to see the information to be put back in a jar with the exact
same serial number.

However, proponents of the use of natural keys insist to have a strong
relationship between the serial number on the jar and what's in it. To me,
such a relationship is pointless and I feel no necessity to use it.

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Technologies Virtual-PC
E-mail: sylvain aei ca (fill the blanks, no spam please)


"David Cressey" wrote in message
newsN%mj.4097$u_5.247@trndny09...

"Marshall" wrote in message
...


an attempt to make SQL data have an address

Exactly. Literally hundreds of attempts to sell snake oil in c.d.t. can
be
reduced to precisely this statement. We've all said variations of the
above, but I've never seen it put so succintly.

As far as the MS Access newsgroups that this discussion is posted to, I
can't speak to how well your summary extends to their mental model. But
many of them seem to write as if
contents as determined by address were the fundamental paradigm of data.