Tim Arnold wrote: > This is a question about system design I guess. I have a django > website that allows users to change/view configuration details for > documentation builds. The database is very small. The reason I'm using > a database in the first place is to make it easy for users to change > the configuration of their builds. Django makes that easy and I can go > on to other problems, like actually building the documentation. > > During a build, I query the configuration database at different times > to get the configuration I need, which results in several calls to the > database at different points of the build process. > > It doesn't feel right that I'm making these calls at different times. > I *could* make a single big call at the beginning of the build, > basically serializing all the config data I could need into a > dictionary or maybe a json structure. And just pass that structure > around as needed during the build, with no more database calls needed. > > These builds take from a few minutes to an hour or so, with the time > spent making db calls almost insignificant. So if time isn't a > problem, am I wringing my hands over something that really doesn't > matter much? I guess it just doesn't feel like the right thing to me. > > thanks, > --Tim
Hello Tim, Given the times that you've quoted for the documentation builds, a few microseconds here and there for database queries doesn't really matter. The Django docs, as it happens, look favourably on doing one query up front, (http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.1/topics/db/optimization/#topics-db-optimization), but they also recommend profiling first, which would presumably highlight the insignificance of your queries compared with the duration of the builds. So I think the upshot is don't worry about it, or if you must, accept that you're worrying more about aesthetics than anything else (not that aesthetics aren't important). Cheers, Kev -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
