artificial keys or not?

[Hannes Dorbath <light@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

we have lots of small relations that only consist of a few attributes. 
like in an ecommerce app we have relations like:

payment_methods
payment_methods_lang

delivery_types
delivery_types_lang

basket_states
basket_states_lang


payment_methods, delivery_types, basket_states mostly just consist of

foo_id  serial  [PK]
active  boolean


the *_lang relations look like

foo_id        integer [PK]
language_id   integer [PK]
label         varchar
description   text


The problem is, our queries got a bit unreadable..


SELECT
  b.basket_id
FROM
  baskets b
WHERE
  b.basket_state_id IN (1,3,6,7);


..dosen't tell much, so we came up with an additional attribute called 
handle, which is just an alternate key for foo_id.


SELECT
  b.basket_id
FROM
  baskets b
  INNER JOIN basket_states bs USING (basket_state_id)
WHERE
  bs.handle IN (
    'open',
    'sign_pending',
    'freight_cost_calc_pending',
    'expired'
  );


looks more readable, but there is need for one more join as well..

..so the only question is:

drop the the serials as PKs and just use short text handles? our 
database size is arround 290 mb. there shouldn't be speed issues as long 
as proper indexes exit, right? some of the conditions are dynamic 
though, so there can't be an proper index in any case. any other concerns?


thanks in advance

---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?

              http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq