[thesite] Tips Database

[rudy]

> The idea (IMO) is to be able to directly link to the author
> when possible, but still display the author (even if we can't
> link) then an author was specified in the original tip.

correct

text field if the foreign key link to the user table cannot be made

going a bit further, another important idea was always to have a single,
authoritative source of information about a person

if you have ever worked on a system where there are two user tables, you
know what a bitch it is to synch them, and the inevitable screwups that can
occur

our situation with the tips is slightly different -- you know how sometimes
a person can subscribe with one userid, and then maybe change jobs, and use
a new one, and so on?  tips from that person will be associated with
multiple users which are actually the same person

not as bad as two user tables, but still ugly

so this was the rationale behind the member table -- one row per person, to
which all the user records could be linked

but i'm getting a little ahead of y'all here, so let's get back to the
discussion of parsing tips...

rudy