PLEASE help with ideas

[mikethecoder]

Okay the situation is as follows...

I would like to create a web site, almost like a site for friends to make
accounts and gather and so forth. I was going to do everything in coldfusion
for the fun of it and to learn it more. I would like to allow users to send
each other messages. There will be a seciton of the site where they have an
inbox, outbox, and trash can and they are free to message other users on the
site and store their messages for lets say 20 days before they must be deleted.

Using coldfusion what is the best way to create such a function on the site?
Of course the idea I have is to create an email table which has fields for data
such as the sender, receiver, date/time, the message itself, and so forth. Then
when a user clicks their inbox to view any messages, that page would search the
email table in the database for any messages where the receiver tag is equal to
their unique user name. Then it would display every message meant for that user
to receive. The issue I have with this is that the page must search thru
possibly millions of emails if the site grew. How much lag would this create?
Or deadlocks on the server from timing out searching? Is there a better way to
do this function without using this particular method of accomplishing it?

[ronnie]

>>The issue I have with this is that the page must search thru
possibly millions of emails if the site grew.


Why? Each user should have a foriegn key table listing all messages to them.
If the tables are properly indexed this should not be an issue.

>The issue I have with this is that the page must search thru
> possibly millions of emails if the site grew

Thats the whole point of the database, to manage large amounts of data. As
long as you use an optimal table design, there shouldn't be too much to
worry about.

Please elaborate if you feel my response assumes too much or helps too
little? But I dont really see a problem here.

>>Is there a better way to

> do this function without using this particular method of accomplishing it?

"mikethecoder" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:d3aa6v$in3$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> Okay the situation is as follows...
>
> I would like to create a web site, almost like a site for friends to make
> accounts and gather and so forth. I was going to do everything in
> coldfusion
> for the fun of it and to learn it more. I would like to allow users to
> send
> each other messages. There will be a seciton of the site where they have
> an
> inbox, outbox, and trash can and they are free to message other users on
> the
> site and store their messages for lets say 20 days before they must be
> deleted.
>
> Using coldfusion what is the best way to create such a function on the
> site?
> Of course the idea I have is to create an email table which has fields for
> data
> such as the sender, receiver, date/time, the message itself, and so forth.
> Then
> when a user clicks their inbox to view any messages, that page would
> search the
> email table in the database for any messages where the receiver tag is
> equal to
> their unique user name. Then it would display every message meant for that
> user
> to receive. The issue I have with this is that the page must search thru
> possibly millions of emails if the site grew. How much lag would this
> create?
> Or deadlocks on the server from timing out searching? Is there a better
> way to
> do this function without using this particular method of accomplishing it?
>