Just another comment, since shopping carts are my favorite subject... I use the two in conjunction. Every time someone adds an item, I create my cart structure, calculate prices using the data in that structure, and stick the new item in the database, for the reasons you listed, for a sticky shopping cart like amazon's, and for stability. I've been burned by session variables in the past... Anytime I need the users current cart, I use the exact same piece of code to create the structure from the database. This allows that whole process of getting the current cart to be 100% reliable, and stuck into a custom tag.
As far as performance goes, a dedicated server is going to be acceptable to the merchant by the time the site is selling enough goods to require it anyway. Going even further to a clustered server setup, those session varaibles can not be transfered across servers (hence my wish for a new multi-server in memory scope in the wishlist thread last week...), and a database becomes a necessity. jon Douglas Brown wrote: > Hey, what about just using a database instead of using structures > or arrays? That is pretty much what sql is for. The performance > would be alot faster and you would also be able to track people > who did not complete the shopping experience and track what items > are most opoular that people are looking at and maybe not > buying....maybe the proce is too high and they found cheaper > elsewhere. > > Doug Brown ______________________________________________________________________ Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
