Need input on DB/table design

Rails
1

I’m building a site… Dah!! and it requires different skills for
different jobs in different states. the site will start off in only
one state but I want to make sure I’m ready for many states. I’m
thinking of a generic skills table with columns skill1 … skillN.
then another table with columns state, job type, skill name, skill
column mapping to the column in the skills table. I would dynamicly
build the table to select the skills based on state job type. I’m
doing this one because I don;t know what all the skills are yet. and
I’m sure I will have to add some along the way either to the state I
start in or when adding new states. and I don;t want to have to hard
code each state.

My question is… Is this a bad idea!! is there a better way of doing
it?

2

spokra wrote:

I’m building a site… Dah!! and it requires different skills for
different jobs in different states. the site will start off in only
one state but I want to make sure I’m ready for many states. I’m
thinking of a generic skills table with columns skill1 … skillN.
then another table with columns state, job type, skill name, skill
column mapping to the column in the skills table.
:
:

My question is… Is this a bad idea!! is there a better way of doing
it?

Looks like this would do it

table states
columns: id and description, etc

table skills
columns: id and description, etc

table state_skills
columns: state_id, skill_id

Then link them up with something like

states model
:has_and_belongs_to_many :skills

skill model
:has_and_belongs_to_many :states

Stephan