[development] Database / SQL future thoughts

[Jeff Eaton]

On May 5, 2009, at 10:07 AM, Bertrand Mansion wrote:

>> 1. Tags are stored inefficiently (I can't think of a way to store  
>> them
>> that is better for every use)
>
> What do you mean by "every use" ?
>
> If you are interested in reading about tags and SQL, here are some  
> pointers:
> http://www.pui.ch/phred/archives/2005/04/tags-database-schemas.html
> http://laughingmeme.org/2005/04/07/in-lieu-of-the-promised-article-on-tags-and-sql/


When Greg says, "Every use" he means that Drupal allows tags and  
taxonomy terms in general to be used for a lot of metadata related  
purposes. It's possible to optimize the storage and retrieval  
mechanism for specific use cases (like user-specific flickr-style  
tags, or hierarchical categorization), but the optimizations for those  
use cases are at odds with each other. What works for one will make  
the others punishingly inefficient. Thus, Drupal currently uses a  
'best-compromise' schema that allows it to capture as much information  
as possible (hierarchy, weight, association, etc.) and relies on  
caching at a later point to smooth out hot spots.

There may well be further improvements that can be eked out, and there  
may be opportunities for optimization that have been missed -- and  
there may even be a case to be made for splitting taxonomy into real  
"tags" and "hierarchical category" so that the system can be better  
optimized. But I'm not sure that you're really clear on how Drupal  
actually works under the hood; the article you pointed to explicitly  
described Drupal's tag storage schema and outlined its advantages. If  
you go back and read the article, it's the "Toxi Solution."


--Jeff Eaton
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