Perrin Harkins wrote:
> Brian Glass wrote:
>
>> A car has a color. There are a list of colors in the status_code
>> table all with the status_type column set to color. A car has_a
>> color. A person can be either a driver or a passenger. There are a
>> list of person roles in the status_code table all with the
>> status_type column set to person_role. A person has_a person_role.
>
>
> I've seen this kind of table design used before, and it was always
> regretted later. Having one big lookup table for everything might
> sound like a good idea at first, but it generally makes your life more
> complicated than simply using separate tables and it hurts the
> performance of your database.
Perhaps you're right.
I did have a good reason for it though. I want to be able to have
user-defined statuses and status types. I'm currently using tables for
each status type right now. I was going to convert everything to a
single table system because to have a unified status thing.
I think maybe I'll take your advice and leave all the predefined
statuses in separate tables and come up with a separate system for the
user-defined types. It'll have to be based on custom method calls anyway.
Thanks.
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