Why not go for the simple solution?

Written in 2022, 4 years ago. Tools and advice may have moved on since.

Last week on Slow&Steady, the podcast where we build products in public, we talked about how the simple solution is often the right solution.

And this week, I realized the denormalization I was doing for Prune your Follows is not really needed. No worries if the Twitter account info repeats for each app user following that account.

So instead of two tables:

account
  - id
  - username
  - name
  - a lot more

follows
  - account
  - followed_by

we can go with one table:

account
  - id
  - username
  - name
  - followed_by
  - a lot more

By doing it the denormalized way, we skip all kinds of complexity that comes with joining tables. For instance, it made it much easier to add the search functionality we created on tonight’s treasure hunt for instance.

 

All the best,
Queen Raae