Why is there a separate table for men and women in the first place? Shouldn’t there be a person table with a many to many relationship with itself (because polyamory exists)?
To that point a person table with a relationship table. So this way you can reference relationship between two or more persons within the relationship table and that could be joined to the person table if needed. I don’t think you’d really be able to keep it within one table while exploring multiple relationships unless you’re storing a list of ids that is interpreted outside of sql. Also a relationship table would allow exploring other types of relationships such as exes, love interests, coworkers, family, friends, etc
Yeah it’d be a person table, and the relationship table indicating the ids of shipped couples. Do you think there’d need to be a status in the relationship table so we can tombstone exes? Or maybe started and ended date columns for each relationship so we can figure out whose cheating on who. But when about on-off relationships then? How would we model Ross and Rachel?
From there you don’t need a rel.status because you’re not updating this rel.id entry except for the rel.end. if they started dating again later it would be a whole new entry, and then you could query their entire dating history to see if they keep coming back to the same person, dating around, playing the field, etc. Separately there could be a friendship relationship that is tracked so you could if they ended being friends after a breakup.
To that point a person table with a relationship table. […] I don’t think you’d really be able to keep it within one table while exploring multiple relationships unless you’re storing a list of ids that is interpreted outside of sql.
Yeah, that’s how many to many relationships work. Especially if you care at all about normalization which I assume we do since we’re debating the best way to model a SQL joke on a tee shirt lol. I thought this might be common knowledge but I’ve included a few links in case you’re curious. Many-to-many relationships
Also, a table having a many-to-many relationship with itself isn’t terribly special. It’s just not necessarily the most common thing ever. We can even express love triangles (as in unrequited love) using this approach. Proper couples could have two entries but unrequited ones would only have one entry on the junction table.
Also a relationship table would allow exploring other types of relationships such as exes, love interests, coworkers, family, friends, etc
Why is there a separate table for men and women in the first place? Shouldn’t there be a person table with a many to many relationship with itself (because polyamory exists)?
To that point a person table with a relationship table. So this way you can reference relationship between two or more persons within the relationship table and that could be joined to the person table if needed. I don’t think you’d really be able to keep it within one table while exploring multiple relationships unless you’re storing a list of ids that is interpreted outside of sql. Also a relationship table would allow exploring other types of relationships such as exes, love interests, coworkers, family, friends, etc
Yeah it’d be a person table, and the relationship table indicating the ids of shipped couples. Do you think there’d need to be a status in the relationship table so we can tombstone exes? Or maybe started and ended date columns for each relationship so we can figure out whose cheating on who. But when about on-off relationships then? How would we model Ross and Rachel?
I think wed just need the following
From there you don’t need a rel.status because you’re not updating this rel.id entry except for the rel.end. if they started dating again later it would be a whole new entry, and then you could query their entire dating history to see if they keep coming back to the same person, dating around, playing the field, etc. Separately there could be a friendship relationship that is tracked so you could if they ended being friends after a breakup.
Yeah, that’s how many to many relationships work. Especially if you care at all about normalization which I assume we do since we’re debating the best way to model a SQL joke on a tee shirt lol. I thought this might be common knowledge but I’ve included a few links in case you’re curious. Many-to-many relationships
Also, a table having a many-to-many relationship with itself isn’t terribly special. It’s just not necessarily the most common thing ever. We can even express love triangles (as in unrequited love) using this approach. Proper couples could have two entries but unrequited ones would only have one entry on the junction table.
Yes! Absolutely! You could have a column that describes the type of the relationship. Having extra information on junction tables.
I guess everyone sets up their own tables.