I am first and foremost a software developer (not a DB
Admin\designer). Usually I apply my object oriented point of view to
my DB designs.

When thinking about this specific problem set what first came to mind
were the following objects:

A Person
A Address
A Person HAS A address
A soccer player IS A person
A contact person IS A person

If I wanted to represent these things in an object oriented
programming language I could create a Person base class and a
SoccerPlayer, ContactPerson derived classes.

In the same way if I wanted to represent the data for this in a
database I would create similar tables representing the objects and
derived objects and join those tables together to get the
representative data.

Is this the wrong style of thinking for database design?

On 7/27/05, Jason Dodson <jasond@...> wrote:
> Completely Unrelated, but your suggestion of a table named "Person" that
> is filled with PEOPLE is peculiar... and I am not picking on you, or
> saying that is wrong. I just noticed throughout my career, and a LOT
> lately, that tables with PEOPLE stored in them are made with the name
> "Person" (I also see "Persons"). This isn't once or twice, or five
> times. If I had to guess, through all of my clients, I have seen this in
> about fifty databases. Does anyone have a clue as to why?
>
> Jason
>
> Gabe Martin wrote:
> > What about this,
> >
> > Since both parents and players are people you create a general table
> > Like so:
> > PERSON
> > PersonID
> > FirstName
> > LastName
> > SurName
> > Sex
> > ContactID (links to Contact Table)
> >
> > Then you can seperate out players and parents (or contacts) via:
> > PLAYER_RELATIONSHIPS
> > PlayerID (link to PERSON.PersonID)
> > ContactID (link to PERSON.PersonID)
> > Relationship
> >
> > If there was other information you wanted to maitain about specific
> > players you could add another table like so:
> > SOCCERPLAYER
> > PersonID
> > Position
> > NumberOfGoals
> > etc..
> >
> > This is in addition to a CONTACT table which has all the normal
> > contact fields as well as a
> > CONTACT
> > Address
> > Suburb
> > State
> > etc..
> >
> > The reason why you would want to have the ContactID in the Person
> > table instead of vise versa is because you will probably have many
> > people (kids and parents) who have the same address.
> >
> > Just an idea.
> >
> > On 7/27/05, Martijn Tonies <m.tonies@...> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>Thanks for your fast response.
> >>>
> >>>Do you think if we set-up a table named contacts, containing,
> >>>name_id
> >>
> >>contact_id
> >>
> >>>firstname
> >>>surnmae
> >>>dateofbirth
> >>>
> >>>Above table would contain names for players, mother and father. Then
> >>>somehow, create another table to link player with mother and father.
> >>>Is it possible?
> >>
> >>The do:
> >>
> >>PLAYER
> >>--
> >>PlayerID (link to Contact.ContactID)
> >>
> >>PARENTS
> >>--
> >>ParentID (link to Contact.ContactID)
> >>
> >>PLAYER_PARENTS
> >>--
> >>PlayerID (link to PLAYER.PlayerID)
> >>ParentID (link to PARENTS.ParentID)
> >>
> >>With regards,
> >>
> >>Martijn Tonies
> >>Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, Oracle & MS SQL
> >>Server
> >>Upscene Productions
> >>http://www.upscene.com
> >>Database development questions? Check the forum!
> >>http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com
> >>
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> >
> >
> >
> >
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>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Visit http://firebird.sourceforge.net and click the Resources item
> on the main (top) menu. Try Knowledgebase and FAQ links !
>
> Also search the knowledgebases at http://www.ibphoenix.com
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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