[wp-hackers] Rebuttal (re: Meta tables: Take 5)

[Pixline › Paolo Tresso]

Jacob Santos wrote:

> 3. It is in my opinion that having multiple tables with the same  
> structure and tiny amount of rows is even worse design than a single  
> table. Alas, a compromise can probably be found between a single  
> table and multiple tables.

+1

also, this should be considered for WPMU as well, at least from  
plugins authors.
I'm working on a 100+ blog installation without the ability to spread  
multiple mysql server, and I'm really struggling about plugins that  
adds more tables than a single blog, for each blog  they're used. ok,  
the whole db is really light compared to our main website, but the  
table namber is growing out of control.

the main website is something that deal with 300K+ users, and its  
monolithic tables - with proper index tuning and some server magic -  
works like a charm. mysql is a bad beast if you don't know how to put  
hands, but when you learn it's a completely different game. also helps:

- good replication scheme design
- memcache ( + memcachdb, if you're brave enough :-)
- mysql proxy


comments in WPMU are also something I would like to have in a single  
global table, but that's another question :-)

paolo/pixline