Re: Would there be a problem with storing documents with this structure?

[Dale Ragan]

Basically I have a document, with an id, rev, type, and Content 
keys.  The Content key
holds the serialized object that is to be stored for it's value.  Are 
there any pitfalls
with this design?  I have attached a sample below: 
I should say I'm in no way an expert, I'm starting to wrap my head 
around document modelling myself. I've been reading up on couchdb a 
couple of days now and find it really interesting.

Anyway, on to your document. First, why duplicate the manager id? 
Isn't there a risk of them getting out of sync?
There is no chance that the Id's will get out of sync. I handle 
generating the Id's when the object is persisted for the first time.

I think you will run into many conflicts if subordinates are updated 
independently. Each subordinate has an id, is there another document 
with more information about subordinates? In that case, why not have 
all information in there and connect them with a managerId attribute 
instead?
This is just an example object that I modeled up for the post.  
Subordinates in this case are updated another way.  They are just 
referenced by the Manager object.  Basically, a one-to-many 
relationship.  If you wanted to update one, you would use a document 
that wrapped the Worker object.  Is it better to normalize the data even 
in CouchDB?

I am new to CouchDB also.  I am trying to abstract any need for a domain 
model needing to know about CouchDB's terms, like Rev.  I am writing an 
API in a statically typed language and I am experimenting with the best 
way to store the object that is given to my API.  This design helps and 
is one of the few I have come up with.

- Dale
{
  "|_id|":|"000144df-6f11-49f1-a502-e0dab3592326"|,
  "|_rev|":|"1-308931e16105b566e1fb48106c85116e"|,
  "|type|":|"Manager"|,
  "|Content|": {
      "|Subordinates|": [
          {
              "|Address|": {
                  "|Street|":|"123 Somewhere St."|,
                  "|City|":|"Kalamazoo"|,
                  "|State|":|"MI"|,
                  "|Zip|":|"12345"|
              },
              "|Hours|":|40|,
              "|Id|":|"6bcdea2f-2439-4785-ab59-2ee612435705"|,
              "|Name|":|"Bob"|,
              "|Login|":|"bbob"|
          },
          {
              "|Address|": {
                  "|Street|":|"123 Somewhere St."|,
                  "|City|":|"Kalamazoo"|,
                  "|State|":|"MI"|,
                  "|Zip|":|"12345"|
              },
              "|Hours|":|40|,
              "|Id|":|"b0d156c9-ea3f-4c4f-b49d-ab19bff64dd8"|,
              "|Name|":|"Alice"|,
              "|Login|":|"aalice"|
          },
          {
              "|Address|": {
                  "|Street|":|"123 Somewhere St."|,
                  "|City|":|"Kalamazoo"|,
                  "|State|":|"MI"|,
                  "|Zip|":|"12345"|
              },
              "|Hours|":|20|,
              "|Id|":|"12b6dbbc-44e8-43c2-8142-11fc6c1d23df"|,
              "|Name|":|"Eve"|,
              "|Login|":|"eeve"|
          }
      ],
      "|Id|":|"000144df-6f11-49f1-a502-e0dab3592326"|,
      "|Name|":|"6"|,
      "|Login|":|"6-login"|
  }
}

Basically the content is a Manager type object with an Id, Name, 
Login, and Subordinates.
Subordinates are Worker's with an Id, Name, Login, Hours, and an 
Address.  The _id and the Id of
the Manager object are the same.  Basically the Document object is 
just a wrapper around what is
given to be persisted.

Thanks,

Dale