Should I have a dedicated primary key field?

Question

I\'m designing a small SQL database to be used by a web application.

Let\'s say a particular table has a Name field for which no two rows will be allowed to have the

Answer 1

Though it's faster to search and join on an integer column (as many have pointed out), it's even faster to never join in the first place. By storing a natural key, you can often eliminate the need for a join.

For a smallish database, the CASCADE updates to the foreign key references wouldn't have much performance impact, unless they were changing extremely often.

That being said, you should probably use an integer or GUID as a surrogate key in this case. An updateable-by-design primary key isn't the best idea, and unless your application has a very compelling business reason to be unique by name - you will inevitably have conflicts.