For the average web application not running on app-engine like infrastructure, I believe the following order of questions would be more prudent:
1. Do I need a database?
2. Can I work with a relational database? SQLite? PostgreSQL/MySQL?
3. Now, do I really need the new hotness?
And if you do need the new hotness, may I also suggest Tokyo Cabinet? I am afraid I can't rate its 'value' on a scale of 10, but I'd say it's pretty high for a free product.
It seems like for 1, if you just have a bunch of files somewhere, you should be able to keep that in source control. When is it a good idea (if ever) to keep a SQLite database in git?
JOINs and data normalization were not created to get around disk space constraints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization#Objectiv...
For the average web application not running on app-engine like infrastructure, I believe the following order of questions would be more prudent:
And if you do need the new hotness, may I also suggest Tokyo Cabinet? I am afraid I can't rate its 'value' on a scale of 10, but I'd say it's pretty high for a free product.