When “Current” Lies: How to Model Relationships That Change Over Time A support manager opens a customer record and sees that the account belongs to the Enterprise plan. Nothing looks wrong. Then finance asks a different question: “Which plan was this customer on when...
Your Schema Is Really a Theory of What Can Change A customer updates their company name. Should every invoice they have ever received change too? A product manager renames a subscription plan. Should last year’s revenue reports display the new name or the name...
Your Database Is Quietly Deciding What Your Product Is Allowed to Become A schema rarely announces its biggest decisions. It does not display a warning that says, “This customer may only belong to one company,” or “An order can never change ownership,” or “We have...
Your Database Is Quietly Deciding What Your Product Is Allowed to Become A database rarely announces that it has made a product decision. It does not join planning meetings, challenge a feature request, or leave comments in a design file. Yet every schema contains...
Every Schema Is a Set of Promises Your Product Must Keep A database does not merely store facts. It stores promises. When you add a column called status, you promise that every meaningful condition of that thing can be squeezed into one field. When you connect users...
Schema Design Is Where Your Product Decides What It Believes A database does not simply store information. It quietly declares what your product believes to be true. It decides whether a customer can have one address or many. Whether an order is a moment in time or a...
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