--- Colin Johnstone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Gidday all, Hiya. :)
> A colleague and I were having a discussion re pros and cons of use of > textfile to store data over a database. When would you use a database > in preference to storing users in a textfile? I would probably always do so, because while the process is small enough that a text file is more efficient, it's probably also small enough that it doesn't really matter. That's not always the case, but it's *likely*. By the same token, however, if you don't think scalability will ever be an issue (red flag!), then maybe it's better to just use whatever you are more comfortable with. > I have written a mailing list application in Perl that that has > a double optin registration process, so I use two text files. > When you first subscribe your name is written to list one when > you complete the registration process your name is removed from > List 1 and written to list two. I'd be less paranoid if those were MySQL field values. But that's just me. :) > This works fine and currently I have 200 subscribers, when do you > think this will become unmanageable and would be better served by > a traditional database? If you expect it to grow, make the changes now while it's easier to manage. Otherwise you'll find yourself hacking in little things here and there, none of which may be individually worth the conversion...but then eventually having to deal with all the little hacks in the conversion, anyway. Better still, make it an object class while you're at it. Then the code can switch from whatever solution you use to something else a little more transparently later. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
