Value App - Database Dilemma

Following on from yesterday's post I have been rethinking my selection of MongoDB for the value app. I think it comes down to having a murky understanding of when to use a SQL database versus NoSQL. Originally I thought MongoDB would work best, and then each user document would look something like the below, containing all of their things along with their individual information:

userSchema = {
	username,
	password,
	things: [
		thing 1,
		thing 2,
		thing 3
	]
}

But when I think about it it’s clear that this is really poor design. I want the site to display each use of a thing so that I can edit or delete one if I want. So then in the sketch above, each thing really needs to be an array including all of the usage dates. But then what if two users want to track their uses of the same thing? Then it’s just a mess of things being repeated in different documents and it just doesn’t make any sense. I could link the things as references, but the little I understand about SQL tables and joins makes me think that this structure should be a lot simpler that what I originally planned.

So clearly I need to learn more about SQL, which I already had next up for learning. But now the question is, do I just build this app poorly now because I want to use it and then rebuild it later, or should I take the time to learn more first before deciding? I’m kind of sick of waiting to build while learning! But I also don’t want to build something that I know from the start is made poorly.

Hmmmmmm…

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I want to do all the things.