this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2026
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If it doesn't have to change based on user input, it doesn't belong in the database.
Can you explain more on this one? Is this position against lookup or read-only db tables?
User is saying something in a DB that doesn't change should not reside in a Database because it's functionally static.
But user doesn't realise why that static data is kept in DB.
Yeah if DBs were only for dynamic data, we would still use files, instead they solve many other problems and that's why we use them
Largely, yes.
The kind of cases where I've seen people stick things in the database that I thought would better be elsewhere:
Mind you, certain kinds of behind-the-scenes users can still qualify as "users" for purposes of considering whether "it needs to change based on user input". For instance, if your marketing department (without software engineering expertise) needs to be able to mess around (without software engineering assistance) with marketing materials displayed on customer-facing websites, you probably need a content-management system of some sort, and I don't think the database is necessarily a bad place to store a lot of that information. (Things like images probably shouldn't go in the database, but metadata about those images are probably quite reasonable data for the database.)
Also, I'm rethinking the term "user input". I could certainly see it being reasonable for automated systems to put data in the database. Like, if you have a scraper doing stuff to be displayed to end users, that doesn't belong in the source code or configuration, and if it's very relatioal, it could well belong in the database. Maybe it'd be better to say "if it doesn't change based on client input, it doesn't belong in the database."
Pagination of data out of a database is why you do it. Or rather, why I've done it in the past. Expanding on this, for the reporting of data so you can join that static data with non static data.