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Asked: 2026-05-10T22:44:02+00:00

I’m currently designing a database for a project. Now I’m debating with myself whether

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I’m currently designing a database for a project. Now I’m debating with myself whether I have to create a look-up table for example ‘civil status’ data which can only contain fixed values like Single, Married, Separated, Widow/Widower. I’m pretty sure that no other values will be added in the future. Should I put these on a separate table or just hardcode the values on the program code?

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  1. What’s the benefit of hard coding them? Given a modern ORM system, isn’t it really easy to read these values out of the DB and use them? If so, then I’m not seeing the benefits of hard-coding when the cons are:

    • You’ll have to redeploy if you want to add to the list
    • You’ll have to redeploy if you want to change the spellings
    • You probably want to have more than just the string (perhaps a ref-id, or a tooltip text, etc.)
    • You’ll have to change 1000s of records to change the text that you stored if you don’t store a ref-id.

    ‘I can’t think that they’re going to change’ is almost never the same as ‘They can’t change’. If they can’t change, as in True/False, then fine. If you don’t think they’ll change, not so much.

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