Pros and Cons of Triggers vs. Stored Procedures for Denormalization

Question

When it comes to denormalizing data in a transactional database for performance, there are (at least) three different approaches:

1. Push updates through stored pr

Answer 1

Triggers are automatic Side Effects and will almost certainly bite you down the line when you want to do something and can't because of the side effects of the triggers. Mainly things like having your system participate in some XA Transaction with other external systems. Triggers make this IMPOSSIBLE. Also it is Side Effect logic that can ONLY be activated by doing the Trigger activator again. If you want to recreate data in the Warehouse you can't just run some procedure and recreate it, you have to execute all the activities that will fire the Triggers, this is a nightmare. INSERTS, UPDATES and DELETES should be idempotent and orthogonal. Triggers needlessly complicate workflows, even if you think they are simplifying them they aren't.