• (nodebb)

    Maybe someone is just copying and pasting from an old design spec and hoping no one notices or cares?

    That's mostly my thought on this, although it does, without actual justification, assume that the copy-paster cares...

    And, of course, there is one case where the statement (especially the "not applicable" part) might actually be unconditionally justified: a one-table application with no in-database links to anything else, but that seems pretty unlikely.

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    More likely it's the consequence of the system being preloaded with a bunch of old data scrounged up from excel files, physical archives and god knows what else all of which had different incompatible schemas which now lead to a system where literally everything is optional. That or someone didn't know how to handle delete properly.

  • LegacyWarrior (unregistered) in reply to 516052

    I think that's how my company's product also evolved. The justification that I usually hear is that "It's easier for the customer!" to be able to upload either their Widgets, or Widget Ingredients, or Customers, or Customer Orders in any order that they feel like... or omit any of them entirely!

  • (nodebb) in reply to LegacyWarrior

    "It's easier for the customer!"

    Cue the old story of how Microsoft insisted on shipping Windows 95 with all ports open --- despite the wailings of the engineers --- because they didn't want to deal with support calls from users who could not figure out how to configure their network, or even simply connect a printer.

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