Adding 'download' column to existing 'visitors' table (as requested)

[Neil Cerutti]

On 2013-11-07, ?????????? ??????????????????????
<nikos.gr33k at gmail.com> wrote:
> I called you an idiot, because in your previous and current
> message you called me too.
>
> I know that splitting information across tables and maintain
> foreign keys for retain relationships between them is a
> necessary thing but in my case i only just an extra pieces of
> information to eb associated with my visitor, a possible file
> download. and i have decided just to add an extra colum to the
> existing 'visitors' database and this is adequate.

Non-normalized data is sometimes a fine idea. How you plan to use
the data once it is stored will be the deciding factor.

One big win with databases is that you can query them really
easily using SQL. Non-normalized data negates that advantage.

How would you write a query to discover all the visitors who
downloaded file XYZ? With your storage scheme, you can't. So by
storing the data this way, you are promising yourself that you'll
never need to write that query, or at least, you won't need to do
it very often.

> I still don't know why you push me to create an extra table
> instead.

Because it's usually the right thing to do.

-- 
Neil Cerutti