CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsactiverecord
toolz
toolz

Reputation: 891

Advice on best practice for structuring two tables that share a lot in common

I am trying to make profiles for employers and employees. Most of the attributes are identical between the two models, but there are a few attributes specific to only employees and a few specific to only employers.

Am I better off creating two tables or is there a better way?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 24

Answers (1)

Tyler
Tyler

Reputation: 11509

In general, if they represent two distinct entities with different roles and responsibilities in real life, then you should make 2 models.

This will help you keep it clear in your head, and it will also make it easier to define any relations between the two models (or other models) and keep those straight as well. For example, Employee might have some relation to a Paycheck model, whereas Employer would not.

If you want to get fancy, you can create a third model (Human?) that both Employer and Employee inherit from to set up commonalities, but this probably isn't necessary unless you feel strongly that refactoring would improve readability and maintainability.

Upvotes: 1

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