When to use a View instead of a Table?

Question

When should a View actually be used over an actual Table? What gains should I expect this to produce?

Overall, what are the advantages of using a view over a table?

Answer 1

Views are handy when you need to select from several tables, or just to get a subset of a table.

You should design your tables in such a way that your database is well normalized (minimum duplication). This can make querying somewhat difficult.

Views are a bit of separation, allowing you to view the data in the tables differently than they are stored.