So your opinion has changed...
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/ofbiz-dev/201103.mbox/%3c82330f5c-3938-487e-98ae-ffee0c876...@hotwaxmedia.com%3E
-Adrian
On 10/5/2012 10:23 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
HelloAdrian,
in my opinion it would be better to leave the data model as is, but improve the
descriptions of the types (and documentation, in the form of comments to xml
data) and also enhnce our utils to deal with types (the Product already has
something in place).
Regards,
Jacopo
On Oct 1, 2012, at 8:14 AM, Adrian Crum wrote:
I mentioned this once before as part of another discussion, but I'm creating a
new discussion so it can receive the attention it deserves.
The Data Model Resource Book describes entity subtypes. OFBiz implements entity
subtypes by adding a field to the supertype that points to a *Type entity that
contains valid subtypes.
The problem is users (and some developers) do not understand that pattern, and
they add invalid subtypes to the *Type entity. That can cause things to break.
As an example, I have a client who created additional ProductTypes (that
actually represented product categories) and used those added ProductTypes for
their products. Then they were puzzled why their order fulfillment process
stopped working.
I think what we need is an EntitySubtype entity to store the subtype data.
Instead of multiple *Type entities, we would have a single EntitySubtype
entity, and the supertypes will point to it. The supertype field could be
called something like entitySubtypeId. The EntitySubtype entity will be clearly
documented as to its purpose and proper use.
EntitySubtype
-------------
entityName*
entitySubtypeId*
description
What do you think?
-Adrian
