On May 18, 10:08 am, Sharagoz <[email protected]> wrote: > You could argue for and against this kind of abstraction. By factoring > it out you reduce the number of fields in the database, you reduce > repetition, you have a model to put name related logic in if there is > any and it is easier to implement changes in the naming convention > later. The draw back is that the data structure becomes a bit more > complex, which will affect most the CRUD operations on those tables. > It's probably overkill for only two tables, but could be worth it if > there are a lot of them.
There is a third table (for now): EMERGENCY_CONTACTS that will contain the name of the emergency contact person and his/her phone. This is actually the one that started me thinking about the name abstraction. I realized that this table will have only the name of the person and a phone number and I had just created the other 2 tables also with a name in them. > My attitude is always to try new things if you've never done them > before. That way, the next time you face a similar design issue, you > have some first hand experience to base the decision on. > Try it. If it doesn't work out at all, it wouldnt be too difficult to > refactor. That's usually my attitude too but this time I am under a time crunch and need to get things done asap. I would rather not have to go back and redo a bunch of changes to the DB and to code when I figure out that the design is flawed. > I would structure the models different, using a polymorphic > association: > class Name < ActiveRecord::Base > belongs_to :nameable, :polymorphic => true > end > > class User < ActiveRecord::Base > has_one :name, :as => :nameable > end > > class Customer < ActiveRecord::Base > has_one :name, :as => :nameable > end Not used polymorphic associations yet. Could be a good way of going. Thanks a lot -- 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.
