Thanks Tim, On May 18, 9:15 am, Tim Lovett <[email protected]> wrote: > Are customers different than users? > Can customers also be users? > > I'd say you should probably just put the customers and users table into one. > You can create a table that links off of users that links them to orders > (customers) if the need arises. Or if they are two separate roles can always > have a flag that denotes it.
Users could be customers but customers are definitely not necessarily users. Imagine a POS application, you have users that effectively use the application and you have customers to whom you sell products/ services. Those customers' info can be stored in the DB. Some of the characteristics will be similar but their functions are entirely different. > The normalization is fine on the name breaking it out to its pieces. > > The problem arises though when you try to break off users and customers that > if they are the same person they likely will need to reinsert all of their > previous information when signing up. It just adds messiness to the database > and makes it harder to associate their information with the user without > somehow getting the original table's name id back to the new one. And > imagine if they have two separate name ids... then they have to go and > update their values in both tables. I am adding also a CUSTOMER_TYPES table because there will be several user types, including an EMPLOYEE type. How we'll handle that will be a separate issue and we'll probably provide a way of copying the information from the users table to the customers table. > I'd personally suggest you combine all three tables unless there is a clear > distinction between customers and users, I believe there is a clear distinction. Thanks. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
