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Regarding timestamp, I often have a soft delete timestamp 'deletedAt' in which it must have a null default value. I think this is a perfectly acceptable usecase of db null values

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It is though I’d be more tempted to have that as it’s own table with more data attached such as the UID who deleted it, reason (if application supported that), etc. That way you can have more detail on “deleted” records without having to null several fields nor increase your table size for your main table with lots of “deleted” metadata when typically records wouldn’t be marked as “deleted”.

Though “deleted” isn’t really the right term here either because you’re not really deleting data, just removing it from view.

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