contacts hell

[goodwinpc]

My apologies in advance, because I can feel in my heart that a rant is forming.
I am a bloody computer engineer. Been writing code - even at MICROcode level (which is even below machine code) - and doing hardware design for 30 years. There is nothing about the insides of computer hardware and software that I dont know. I am the guy that your company's IT department calls in when THEY are stumped. I dont say this to brag. It is simply stated to set the stage.
Also, I love my droid.
But i have to say that the contacts app is the stupidest thing ever created.
PRAY TELL: Is there any way to make it do one simple thing: a flat contacts database. No linking. No hiding. No special contacts for facebook, texting, phone, googlemail, auntfrieda, and whatever other stupid as hell special cases they have built in there.
I want ONE FLAT contacts database, that syncs to my Exchange server. Sort of like what almost EVERY OTHER SMARTPHONE in the free world does. It is almost enough to make a fellow want to go get one of the itoys like the children have.
Would love any help from a kind soul who is able to see past my frustration and offer some mercy.

 

[sitlet]

Absolutely, just dont sync with facebook/twitter if you dont want those contacts showing up.

 

[raynoldsk]

Yeah--don't sync the ones you don't want in there, and just sync your G-mail contacts that have phone numbers if you only want those to show up.

It was quite a shock to find everyone who had ever sent me an email (or been cced on an email I got) in my phone's contacts. Lots of dead folks showed up in there

 

[barqers]

You can actually choose what contacts sync via facebook. I did this, but now I want to sync more contacts, but I have no idea how lol. Because I think I have to remove the account, and resync it to allow me to choose contacts again.

 

[alostpacket]

I think the problem he is referring to is that facebook in particular (not sure about twitter) does not follow the standard contact database. Google had made an exception for them in the past but as of Gingerbread they have demanded that FB follow the same rules others have to.

Basically what is going on is that FB is trying to keep any FB info from being exported from the phone. FB however is still not cooperating though.

The contacts database is actually decently normalized -- however from an API perspective it's a nightmare to work with because despite being normalized, you are abstracted away from real SQL statments. So no Views/Joins/whatever.