*****

The example was based around a parent - child relationship wasn't it ? I can't imagine a parent-child relationship where I would want to keep orphaned child records. If staff don't understand the schema I'd be very nervous about letting them delete anything. Steve Brett

*****

Well, on that issue, you'd very likely want to keep a record of your orders/invoices even after having deleted the customer record that originated those orders/invoices, so there might be circumstances where you'd keep children when the parent goes away.

In reference to the article in general, I hate to say this, but it doesn't strike me as that common a problem.  It poses a decent solution to the issue yes, but in fifteen years of dealing with this stuff I've never seen an issue like the one you describe.  Could be I live in a bubble, but I don't think so.  I guess I'd rather have seen something on how to modernize such a structure, or perhaps how to design to avoid it, so in the future I won't show up somewhere and have to deal with such a schema ).

Later -

  T