>-----Original Message----- >From: Kevin Hunter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 10:59 PM >To: John Smith >Cc: MySQL General List >Subject: Re: Normalization vs. Performance > >At 2:11pm -0400 on Tue, 26 Aug 2008, John Smith wrote: >> So how bad is this? The mentioned query will be the query which is >used >> the most in my application (yes, it is going to be a forum). >> Should I break normalization and save the date of the root in each >node row? > >My recommendation is no. Normalization is a Good Thing, and you'll be >hard-pressed to convince me otherwise. In the long run, you (or >following programmers) will thank yourself if you maintain a normalized >core data model. Seriously. > >But speed and performance are the here-and-now issues while DB >technology "catches up" to demands. Have you looked at temporary tables >or materialized views? These might help you in this endeavor. > [JS] You can sometimes cheat.
Our database is normalized, but many of our users want to use MS Access to get at the data in read-only mode to extract data into Excel. Rather than trying to teach them how to define the necessary JOINs, I periodically build a non-normalized table for them. For example, I take the values from a dependent (1:n) table and use GROUP_CONCAT to stuff them into a single field in the unnormalized table. True, the data isn't up-to-the-minute. I truncate the table and reload it daily. It is good enough for them. >Kevin > >-- >MySQL General Mailing List >For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql >To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] >infoshop.com -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
