title: Best practice for empty table columns in Rails 3.2
body: <p>I have a question about database data in Rails.</p>
  
  <p>What is the best practice for empty table columns?</p>
  
  <p>I don't have defaults on some columns that aren't compulsory for user input eg. </p>
  
  <pre><code>User model
  ID | name       | drink_of_choice |  favourite_color
  -----------------------------------------------------
  1  | Benji      | coffee          |  yellow
  2  | Becky      | tea             |  NULL
  -----------------------------------------------------
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>As you can see Becky's favouritte_color is NULL because Becky didn't enter her favourite color yet.</p>
  
  <p>Do Rails developers set :default => '' as a best practice to save an empty string and avoid NULL in the database?</p>
  
  <p>Thank you for your patience and I appreciate any advice to further my learning.</p>
  
  <p>WD </p>