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I’m setting up a database that will have ‘business_owners’ and ‘customers’. I could set this up in a couple days but wanted to see what your opinion is on best practice.
I could have two tables, ‘business_owners’ and ‘customers’, each with name, email etc. or…
I could do one table ‘Users’ and have a user_type as ‘business_owner’ or ‘customer’ and just use that type to determine what to show.
I’m thinking the second option is best, any feedback?
Rule of thumb:
If you have more than one table with identical (or near identical) columns, they should be condensed into a single table. Use a type code/etc to distinguish between as necessary, and work out the business rules for columns that depend on the type code.
Answer:
The second option is the best approach. It’s the most scalable, and will be the easiest to work with if you ever need to use resultsets that include both business owners & customers.