Building with Patterns: The Approximation Pattern

Imagine a fairly decent sized city of approximately 39,000 people. The exact number is pretty fluid as people move in and out of the city, babies are born, and people die. We could spend our days trying to get an exact number of residents each day. But most of the time that 39,000 number is "good enough." Similarly, in many applications we develop, knowing a "good enough" number is sufficient. If a "good enough" number is good enough then this is a great opportunity to put the _Approximation Pattern_ to work in your schema design.