[Phpmyadmin-devel] about choosing table layout for pmadb

[Marc Delisle]

Hi,

Zeeshan is proposing a new table to store user preferences:
http://zixan.info/2009/06/04/gsoc-week-two-progress/#comments

Michal answers in the blog that this does not scale. When looking at 
Zeeshan's proposal, I had the same idea for a moment. However, after 
some researches, I am tempted to reject Michal's proposal.

Michal's proposed solution (a table with key values) is also called the 
EAV (entity-attribute-value) model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity-attribute-value_model#Downsides

This is advocated as a design flaw by some experts, see the comments here:
http://www.devshed.com/showblog/22280/Database-Design-Using-KeyValue-Tables/

http://decipherinfosys.wordpress.com/2007/01/29/name-value-pair-design/

Marc