[talesmm14]

I've worked at companies where soft delete was implemented everywhere, even in irrelevant internal systems... I think it's a cultural thing! I still remember a college professor scolding me on an extension project because I hadn't implemented soft delete... in his words, "In the business world, data is never deleted!!"

[salomonk_mur]

But... It's true. Deleting data completely is an easy way to gimp and lobotomize your future analysis.

Storage is cheap. Never delete data.

[ziml77]

I prefer audit tables. Soft deletes don't capture updates, audit tables do (you could make every update a delete and insert in a soft delete table, but that adds a lot of bloat to the table)

[yxhuvud]

Deleting data is also a very easy way to not get GDPR compliance issues. Data is a cost and a risk, and should be minimised to what is actually relevant. Storage is the least part of the cost.

[phito]

Not an issue if you're not building SaaS

[yxhuvud]

Depends on your jurisdiction I suppose. If you are in EU it's a question if you have PII or not - if you are a SaaS or not is totally irrelevant.

[sfn42]

Depends on the data in question. Some data is worth keeping, other data isn't.

[mrkeen]

No comment from the professor on modifications though?