Relational database design question - Surrogate-key or Natural-key?

Question

Which one is the best practice and Why?

a) Type Table, Surrogate/Artificial Key

Foreign key is from user.type to type.i

Answer 1

The first one is more future proof, because it allows you to change the string representing the type without updating the whole user table. In other words you use a surrogate key, an additional immutable identifier introduced for the sake of flexibility.