What is a meaningless number?
Meaningless numbers are ID and CODE columns which uniquely identify a record in a database table. They were made up by computer programmers, and in traditional programming, they formed the first entry window where you were responsible for remembering that D means Doctor, and 402 is your best customer. Since it would be wrong to discriminate against an entry window just because its a letter and not a number [age of equality] Ill include meaningless letter combos in this theory also.
The point?
Users should not be required to remember 402 for General Electric of Massachusetts and 791 for General Electric Turbine Division, but programmers should indeed still make use of them as the basis of relationships between database table records. Just dont expect the users to enter or remember them: the truly meaningless numbers and codes can be totally hidden from users and as a study, I will refer to RoloFlex by Applause Software as a good example where each table is based on a unique meaningless number. [reference: http://www.applausesoftware.com/: free RoloFlex]
What is a meaningful number?
A meaningful number is those...