Actually, flat files are not faster for large amounts of records...beyond that, as the data is pulled into your program you have to take extra measures to tie it all
together, whereas a RDBMS will already have all of the information related for you.

Not to mention the fact that a lot of things that you would have to do programatically with flat files you can do with the DB and it's built in methods.

• Sort the list? Use ORDER BY
• Get only unique values? Use DISTINCT
• Need to tie two tables together? Use JOIN
• Need transaction support? Use PostGre or SQLServer or Oracle and you have it.
• etc...

There are many benefits that come from using a RDBMS, and if ZZamboni wants his site to grow easier, then he should port to one. The investment is worth the
payoff later, and he gets to learn a whole new side of Perl he has not done yet.