SQL Antipatterns

Legitimate Uses of the Antipattern

Some object-relational frameworks simplify development by assuming convention over configuration. They expect every table to define its primary key in the same way: as an integer pseudokey column named id. If you use such a framework, you may want to conform to its conventions, because this gives you access to other desirable features of the framework.

There’s also nothing wrong with using a pseudokey, or assigning values from an auto-incrementing integer mechanism. But not every table really needs a pseudokey, and it’s not necessary to name every pseudokey id.

A pseudokey is a good choice as a surrogate for a natural key that’s too long to be practical. For example, for a table that records attributes ...