another point: if there will be many searches on the database and you're worried about performance (normalization can lead to worse performance) please consider using a search engine.

update: so what about the suggestion to use a search engine is so bad that i get 2 downvotes and no reasons told?

update2: in case anybody else got this wrong - normalization *can* lead to worse performance for *searches* and i'm not saying don't normalize.

update 3: "if there will be many searches" doesn't mean that this will influence the speed. it means if there are many searches then it is worthwhile to use a search engine. if you have 3 or 4 damn slow searches a day is not relevant.

rephrased (i thought it was clear what i meant, but apparently this wasn't the case): if you have a database that needs to be normalized but you have many search queries on it that are actually faster than they would be with a normalized data structure then don't hesitate to normalize but use a search engine for the searches.

In reply to Re: (OT) Couple of Data Model Design Considerations by tinita
in thread (OT) Couple of Data Model Design Considerations by Anonymous Monk

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