On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 12:41:27 -0500, Alex J. Avriette <avriette(a)gmail.com> wrote:
As a database goes searching through its indices and
tables looking
for a tuple, it must iteratively go over other tuples before it finds
the one it wants. It doesn't just have some magic pointer that knows
where [[designated marksman]] is. It has to figure it out. When the
number of articles exceeds several hundred thousand, you really need
to "give it hints" about where to find that article. I don't know if
this is already being done, but it might be possible to use things
like categories (or some form of tagging) to "associate" groups of
articles so that, while they might not have to live in their own
separate table, that they were more easily "findable" by the database.
Why use categories or tagging for that? And how would it help at all.
You have to have the article first before knowing what category or tag
it has! A much better method, is to use the title itself as the tag,
index the 'title' field, and then do a binary search on it.
No need for tagging, categories, or whatever. The only downside of it
is that we are already using it, so implementing it will not make it
any iota faster. But at least it doesn't slow it down either, which I
fear your plans would.
Andre Engels