Hi
> And what's the problem with networkcard_products being a separate table
> that shares a key with the products table?
>
> CREATE TABLE products (product_id int, ...)
> CREATE TABLE networkcard_products_data (product_id int, ...)
> CREATE VIEW networkcard_products AS
> SELECT products.product_id, ...
> FROM products
> JOINT networkcard_products_data USING (product_id)
>
> What functionality does table inheritance offer that this traditional
> relational method of doing things doesn't?
Well, if you also have soundcard_products, in your example you could have a
product which is both a networkcard AND a soundcard. No way to restrict that
a product can be only one 'subclass' at a time... If you can make that
restriction using the relational model, you can do the same as with
subclasses. But afaict that is very hard to do...
Sander.