Re: circular relationships ok?

Gene Wirchenko wrote:
> On 2 Mar 2006 18:51:01 -0800, "Marshall Spight"
> <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >I'm not getting it. If we're talking about husband and wife in
> >a context in which there is exactly one-for-one always,
> >then we are talking about a table of married people. In
>
> No. The husband and wife exist as separate entities and may be
> referred to individually. There may *also* be a table reflecting the
> marriages.
>
> >which case, why wouldn't I have HusbandBirthday, WifeBirthday,
> >etc.? In fact, I don't really see how the particular domain
>
> Because you probably want the birthdate of the person regardless
> of the role the person has in a marriage. People who are not married
> have birthdates, too.

This line of reasoning doesn't work for me at all. The question was whether to put data items which are exactly-one-to-exactly-one in the same table; it is not relevant to argue that you might not want to do so because they might not be exactly-one-to-exactly-one.

Marshall Received on Fri Mar 03 2006 - 21:50:31 CET