Pragmatics of database design: the argument for soft-delete (marking records as deleted rather than actually removing them).

Let’s say our marketing department decides to delete an item from the catalog. Should all previous orders containing that item just disappear? And cascading farther, should all invoices for those orders be deleted as well? Going on, would we have to redo the company’s profit and loss statements?

Tony Finch (April 2025) points out an important exception to the idea of just using IsDeleted flags, however:

The main counterexample is data protection law. You have to be able to delete personal data. This article predates the GDPR so it has a reasonable excuse for not taking it into account.