Re: [Bug-gnupedia] Linking to particular article?

[Tom Chance]

> An article will often comprise a number of segments,
> each of which may be a
> media type other than text. It's not efficient use
> of a database to store
> large binary objects in a table - MySQL themselves
> recommend against it,
> although they agree that the database *will* handle
> it. Just not
> efficiently.

You wouldn't store things like pictures and movies IN
the mySQL databse! But it would be more efficient to
store text in a database, rather than as many XML
files. Especially if you OPTIMIZE it often.

> 
> The same is usually true with large chunks of text. 
> An encyclopedia is
> going to get a lot of hits, so one of the
> design/implementation criteria
> must be performance. For example, you try hard *not*
> to use varchar in a
> table. Use of a single one has an effect on the
> performance of all data in
> that table. Use of TEXT in any of it's
> manifestations has a similar
> side-effect in MySQL.
Varchars are better to keep to a minimun, but even so
a database with many varchars and text fields would
still be more efficient than a large XML filesystem.


> Throwing hardware at performance problems is a
> partial solution, true, but
> designing for performance up-front is a better
> start.
Databasing is performance up-front. Many files would
need better hardware to get comparable speeds.


Tom Chance

=====
"True security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in isolated 
individual effort - Fyodor Dostoyevsky"

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. 
http://auctions.yahoo.com/