You can think about these in a couple of different ways. One way is to consider each possibility a distinct state such as VERIFIED_BROKEN, ... . That implies separate code to deal with each state.

An alternative is to consider fundamental states (VERIFIED) and state modifying flags (BROKEN). The code then consists of handlers for each state with conditional code in the state handling code to deal with allowed modifier flags.

If the flag handling is a small amount of code in each state handler then using flags in a flag column seems sensible. If the exceptional state handling code is significantly different than the unexceptional state code I'd do it as distinct states and use a single column.

Either of these approaches work well with using a state machine as suggested by others.

True laziness is hard work

In reply to Re^2: Is this a simple, robust, and maintainable design? by GrandFather
in thread Is this a simple, robust, and maintainable design? by neodon

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