From: Jujitsu Lizard (jujitsu.lizardgmail.com)
Date: Sat Nov 15 2008 - 14:45:45 CST

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On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 3:54 AM, metastable <listpitmetastable-services.net
> 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.

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