On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 3:54 AM, metastable <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
> I may just have had an insight over my morning coffee. > How about turning things around and adding a FK -to the customers table- > on each of the customer type tables (companies, people, charities, etc) ? > > The customers table would have no idea if a customer is corporate or > private, it just has a customer number that can be used in processing > invoices and performing account maintenance. > The companies, people, charities, etc. tables would each have a FK to > the customers table. > > This does off course mean that creating and sorting a list of all > customers is more complex, but the database would at least be normalised. > What do you think ? > I think you just made my point. You now recognize that designing it "right" introduces other complexities. With the problem you presented, it is just a matter of where you want to get tasered. There isn't a solution that optimizes all parameters.
