# Databaseless app choices

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/databaseless-app-choices/176569>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 2, 2009, 9:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/databaseless-app-choices/176569 "2009-10-02T09:59:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/59ef9b/32.png) [@rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rhubarb)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 9:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/databaseless-app-choices/176569/1 "2009-10-02T09:59:03Z")

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Hi  
I want to write a simple Rails app that gets a list (of TFS Workitems)  
using a  
Web Service and presents it on a web page to users.

I would like to:

- try and avoid using a DB (for simplicity)
- have a free text search
- filter and sort the list
- user login
- different users see different subsets of list data
- maintain a complete copy of the list in my app. Update regularly by  
calling  
WS for latest changes.
- keep things simple as I am a noob

so my questions are:

1. how should I store my data (DB, XML file? etc). If DB - which?
2. how should I do the regular update. Rake,CRON etc
3. based on storage choice, how do I do free text search. I have read  
about  
ferret and sphynx. Do they require DBs?

thanks for any suggestions  
Rhubarb

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**Author:** ![rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/59ef9b/32.png) [@rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rhubarb)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 10:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/databaseless-app-choices/176569/2 "2009-10-02T10:16:36Z")

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Hi

I am also interested to know if there are any tools/techniques that can  
help  
with \* list presentation functionality

- presentation code minimisation

Rhubarb

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**Author:** ![rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/59ef9b/32.png) [@rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rhubarb)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 3:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/databaseless-app-choices/176569/3 "2009-10-02T15:41:19Z")

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Rhubarb wrote:

> Hi  
> I want to write a simple Rails app that gets a list (of TFS Workitems)  
> using a  
> Web Service and presents it on a web page to users.
> 
> I would like to:
> 
> - try and avoid using a DB (for simplicity)

In many cases, using a DB makes things simpler.

> - have a free text search
> - filter and sort the list
> - user login
> - different users see different subsets of list data
> - maintain a complete copy of the list in my app. Update regularly by  
> calling  
> WS for latest changes.
> - keep things simple as I am a noob
> 
> so my questions are:
> 
> 1. how should I store my data (DB, XML file? etc). If DB - which?

Probably a DB will be easiest. I recommend PostgreSQL.

> 1. how should I do the regular update. Rake,CRON etc

There are many possibilities; I’ll let folx who are more familiar with  
them address that question.

> 1. based on storage choice, how do I do free text search. I have read  
> about  
> ferret and sphynx. Do they require DBs?

I think so, but honestly, you’ll want a DB anyway for this project.

> thanks for any suggestions  
> Rhubarb

## Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser  
[http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org)  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/59ef9b/32.png) [@rhubarb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rhubarb)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/databaseless-app-choices/176569/4 "2009-10-02T15:55:35Z")

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On Oct 2, 2:41 pm, Marnen Laibow-Koser \<rails-mailing-l…@andreas-  
[s.net](http://s.net)\> wrote:

> > 1. based on storage choice, how do I do free text search. I have read  
> > about  
> > ferret and sphynx. Do they require DBs?
> 
> I think so, but honestly, you’ll want a DB anyway for this project.

sphinx doesn’t require a db- as long as documents have a unique  
numeric identifier you can feed sphinx and can also give it your data  
as suitably formatted xml. But yeah, I don’t see why avoiding a db is  
a particularly good idea (although depending on the shape of your data  
a non relational database may be more appropriate than a relational  
one - from what has been said so far it doesn’t look like this is one  
of those cases)

Fred