I recently read a lot about solutions people have come up with to put a class hierarchy into a relational DB, because it all mostly applies when the domain’s data model makes heavy use of ad hoc union union types (like TypeScript’s union types).

If you only skimmed the StackOverflow post or were about to bounce because “my models don’t form complex inheritance hierarchies,” ask whether you’ve tried to serialize something with type `A | B` to the database and been frustrated at there being no good solution. Then (re-)read the post in that framing and see if the solutions proposed and tradeoffs discussed look more relevant to you.

It’s made me realize that there’s probably a lot more collected wisdom locked up in writings from the 90’s and early 00’s that I disregard because it’s so heavily class inheritance focused. Alternatively: free blog post ideas by re-contextualizing this content in contemporary languages and technologies!