Soft deletes are an example of where engineers unintentionally lead product instead of product leading engineering. Soft delete isn’t language used by users so it should not be used by engineers when making product facing decisions.

“Delete” “archive” “hide” are the type of actions a user typically wants, each with their own semantics specific to the product. A flag on the row, a separate table, deleting a row, these are all implementation options that should be led by the product.

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dpark 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Soft delete isn’t language used by users so it should not be used by engineers when making product facing decisions.

Users generally don’t even know what a database record is. There is no reason that engineers should limit their discussions of implementation details to terms a user might use.

> “Delete” “archive” “hide” are the type of actions a user typically wants, each with their own semantics specific to the product.

Users might say they want “delete”, but then also “undo”, and suddenly we’re talking about soft delete semantics.

> A flag on the row, a separate table, deleting a row, these are all implementation options that should be led by the product.

None of these are terms an end user would use.

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monkpit 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would implementation details be led by product? “Undo” is an action that the user may want, which would be led by product. Not the implementation in the db.

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strken 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I believe that was the point. Soft delete isn't a product requirement, it's an implementation detail, so product teams should talk about the user experience using language like "delete" or "archive" or "undo" or "customer support retrieves deleted data".

	▲	Terr_ 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yeah: You don't "delete" a bank account, you close it, and you don't "undo", you reopen it, etc. The processes have conditions, audit rules, attached information, side-effects, etc. In some cases the same entity can't be restored, and you have to instead create a successor. "Undo" may work as shorthand for "whatever the best reversing actions happen to be", but as any system grows it stops being simple.
	▲	dpark 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Sure. Did someone say that the behavior should be described to customers as soft delete, though? I read a blog about a technical topic aimed at engineers, not customers.

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antonvs 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It depends on the product. Google Cloud Storage has a soft delete feature in its product, for example: https://docs.cloud.google.com/storage/docs/soft-delete