Merlin Moncure wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
>> The first time I encountered them, I thought enums were a filthy,
>> ill-conceived answer to a problem that didn't exist, implemented by people
>> who didn't understand relational databases. With considerably more
>> experience under my belt than then, I say now that my original estimation
>> was too kind.
>
> I think you're being a little too hard on enums here. I was actually
> in the anti-enum camp until it was demonstrated to me (and in my own
> testing) that using enum for natural ordering vs. fielding the
> ordering of the type out to a join is can be a huge win in such cases
> where it is important. Relational theory is all well and good, but in
> practical terms things like record size, index size, and query
> performance are important.
Uhm. Sorry what? Can you demonstrate this particular use?
When I first saw discussion about enumns I kinda hoped they
will be implemented as kind of macro to really map to a table.
But here you go. I'm still looking for a good example to
demonstrate the usefullness of enums (same for arrays for that
matter)
Cheers
Tino
