Discussion: Should delete really delete?

[oguzhanaksoy]

Let's say I am an analytics person and I would like to look at my history.
I would like to see what I have done 1 month/year ago.

If we really destroy the data/task from the database, we can't make the report.

I have 2 suggestion about this:

IsDeleted
In the tasks table, there can be a column, called IsDeleted --not very suggested

HISTask
We can create a new table, called HISTask (HistoryTask - it can be renamed) and we can have deleted date and updated date.
When we insert the task, we will insert it on HISTask too.
When we make reports about tasks, we will include HISTask on the query.

[pobiega]

First: I love this idea, and was going to suggest the same myself! :)

I suggest a hybrid between the approaches. "Column bloat" isn't really a problem in modern databases, so I'm fine with adding a fair bit.

Type	Name
string	Name
string	Description
DateTime?	DoneDate
DateTime?	DeletedDate

Explanation of the DateTime? fields

A nullable DateTime can be used to show both if and when something happened. If its null, it is not done/deleted.