I’m building a web app that will (ideally) allow users to follow discussion threads (which are in Q&A format like this site), but also follow other content types, such as firms and schools that have profile pages. (The site is intended to help with professional job-seeking, so the back-end provides a bare-bones profile page for firms, schools, etc.)
Would it be more efficient to have one “Follow” table that has a follow_entity_type field that would be access and then redirect to the appropriate content table (Q&A, firms, etc.)? Or should I have a “Follow” table for each content type that need to accessed separately when I try to compile the user’s feed? The first seems to entail more complex coding and queries, while the second would make it more difficult to organize the feed chronologically for all types of posts.
I’m sure the solution is straight-forward, but as a part-time developer and autodidact, some times I miss the basics.
I’d take the follow_entity_type field most times. It’s in my opinion a lot easier to integrate one extra type of fetch from an entity list then integrate a new join table in all instances of the list. It would also mean only 1 instead of 2 tables would have to be added per ‘content type’, in which storing & retrieving is already taken care of. The queries don’t get that much harder IMHO.