On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 8:27 PM, Alex Brollo alex.brollo@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