Database backend?

[Jp Calderone]

On Sun, 08 May 2005 20:09:29 +0200, Mikkel Høgh <mikkel at revelation.dk> wrote:
>I am in the progress of laying the groundwork for a small application I
>intend to make, and I'd like some expert advice, since this is the first
>larger project I've gotten myself into.
>
>First problem is which backend to use for data storage. The application I am
>trying to create is a small presentation-program with the sole purpose of
>displaying lyrics for songs at smaller concerts.
>The system is required to have a database of some kind for storing the
>lyrics, and this should most definitely be searchable.
>Naturally, I need a backend for this of some sort. I've been thinking of
>either XML, or full-blown MySQL.
>XML is very versatile, but I wonder if it is fast enough to handle lyrics
>for, say, 1000 songs - and then I would need to come up with some kind of
>indexing-algorithm. MySQL on the other hand, requires a lot of effort and
>adds to the complication of the installation.
>
>Honestly, I have a hard time making my mind up. Also, there might be other
>possibilities.
>
>Feedback will be appreciated.

  1000 songs is not very many.  I doubt any solution you come up with will suffer from performance problems.  Your best bet will probably be to use the simplest possible data structure, perhaps pickled on disk, perhaps just written to lightly structured text files, and don't worry about using a database for now.  If you find yourself needing to handle a couple orders of magnitude more songs, at that point you may wish to revisit your data storage solution.

  Jp