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<DIV>Joel, with all that we say that focuses on performance, there are things that we don't talk about much.</DIV>
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<DIV>Compared to development costs, servers are cheap. Memory is even cheaper. A super high-powered server with tons of memory is going to cost, at most, maybe $10K. Total cost of ownership over the project's lifetime is going to be orders of magnitude higher.</DIV>
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<DIV>The cost of the development and maintenance is most likely going to be, by far, the larger share of the cost. So finding a developer (and others) with a mindset that reduces that part of the cost is imperative.</DIV>
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<DIV>When I develop a site, I focus on several areas:</DIV>
<DIV>1) getting myself out the door as quickly as possible (sounds strange to hear that),</DIV>
<DIV>2) making the user experience the best that I can make it so that ongoing costs and usefulness are optimal,</DIV>
<DIV>3) making it easy for external performance experts to get the best possible results.</DIV>
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<DIV>If your design meets these goals, then go with it. I certainly think that what you've said indicates you have a handle on #1, with at least some of #2 in mind. Drupal's design generally allows for a good portion of #3.</DIV>
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<DIV>You don't need the community's permission to proceed wih your design. Sometimes there is no "perfect" answer. I can categorically state that you understand the end goals of this project better than anyone on this list. It is also my educated guess that you (plural, as in anyone) won't understand all the performance implications until you are much farther along. We can only tell you that such-and-such didn't work for <STRONG>my</STRONG> project, which in reality was different from yours. So do it, learn from it, and share your experiences when it's over.<BR> </DIV>
<P><FONT color=#ff007f size=4 face="bookman old style, new york, times, serif"><EM><STRONG>Nancy</STRONG></EM></FONT></P>
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<P><FONT face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.</FONT></P>
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<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: times new roman, new york, times, serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">From:</SPAN></B> Joel Willers</DIV>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d">Basically, if I have the data structure and interaction already mapped out, and all the tables already designed, how much performance do I lose by setting up Content Types and Node References versus just creating the table manually, and writing PHP to control the data flow? </SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d">Time-wise, I realize it’s much, much easier to do Content Types and Node References. It’s like 1/10<SUP>th</SUP> the time. But if Node References are going to hit the memory on the server too hard and cause performance issues and delays, then it just isn’t going to work. </SPAN></P></DIV></DIV></div></body></html>