On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 06:48 -0700, eric.frederich wrote: > So the solution you recommend, "Have the foreign key point to the > auth.User model and then use person.get_profile() if you need to > access the profile object"... is that a "best practice" for dealing > with users and profiles? Never link directly to the profile and > always to the user?
I have no idea, but I doubt that's going to be universally "best" (in fact, I know it isn't). I don't know anybody who is in charge of defining "best practice" and I doubt I would believe them, anyway. Seriously, best practice is whatever works nicely to solve your problem. One solution to your problem, based on the information you've provided so far is simply to hard-code the model you want to point to. However, you seem to be going to some lengths to make that model configurable and useful as a user profile. So you came up with a solution that allows a configurable user profile, but has some drawbacks for some situations that I then pointed out. If you want to remove those drawbacks (and maybe you don't -- maybe your current solution is acceptable for your purposes), one way is to link to the User object and use the profile when you need it. I wouldn't necessarily always call get_profile() if I was doing this -- I might well directly query the profile model (since I can easily enough look up what the model name is), as it's primary key value can be made to be the same as the primary key value of the associated User model. I'm very reluctant to bless anything much as "best practice" and that's not because I don't like expressing an opinion (anybody reading this list will attest to that). It's because so many problems have multiple solutions and the most appropriate solution often depends on subtleties that includes intended usage patterns and who will be working with the code in the future. Also, quite often, in fact, there is not "best" solution -- there are a number of them. Throughout my (starting to be fairly long) career as a software developer and manager of technical people, I see far too many people getting stuck on seeking some elusive unique, best answer. Also, keep in mind that, as a general principle, "best" isn't the goal. "Good enough" is the goal. In your position, I suspect you could use any of the solutions we've discussed here. Hopefully you now have an idea of the various trade-offs involved and can make an informed choice as to which you will feel most comfortable with. Regards, Malcolm --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-users+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
