[thelist] database structure for speedier queries

[Joshua Olson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matt Warden
> Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 6:31 PM
> 
> When I finished this list, I would turn around and tell you to forget
> about it and add an dte_archived field (rather than a yes/no bit).
> Null means active, non-null means archived. At any time you could
> implement a batch job that takes (sysdate - dte_archived) > x records
> and moves them to another table or data store, possibly sitting on
> cheaper storage.

All,

Agreed, but be careful of one thing.  Some databases don't index NULL values
in a manner that makes querying for NULL vs. non-NULL as fast as it could
be.  It's almost certainly better to add a flag AND the date field if you
are generally only interested in whether or not an item is flagged, and not
necessarily when it was flagged.

Joshua