On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Alex Brollo <alex.brollo(a)gmail.com> wrote:
:-) Yes, they just exist for that... but in my view of "layman database
manager" I learn by experience a rule of relational databases: NEVER
link
to variable fields of a table! Always link to id! So, IMHO redirects are
merely a patch to an unfixed issue.
Please imagine something like this: it could (perhaps! I'm NOT a
programmer!) fix the whole thing.
User writes wikilink as usual. As soon as the page is posted, the server
converts param 1 into an id. Than, when the page is loaded, the param 1 is
converted again into the UPDATED, RUNNING name of the page, so that user
can't view anything... but a right, updated name of the linked page, even
if
it has been "moved".
Am I completely mad?
Wikilinks are NOT references to pages, but instead to concepts. We don't
have a "concepts" table (if you want to use DB-speak, because concepts
don't
have any non-key attributes), but a concept's primary key is its page title.
This is why we let people create links to non-existent pages — because while
a page may not yet be associated with the concept, we want to link to it as
soon as one is created.
It's also erroneous to say that page IDs do not change. They change when a
page is deleted or undeleted, and in a few other circumstances.
Hope this helps clarify,
Andrew
--
Andrew Garrett
http://werdn.us/