Database Design: to EAV or not to EAV?

Question

Say I have an entity that will have many attributes, some I know about now and others will be user defined. What\'s the best way to model this?

1) Do I have a main t

Answer 1

I've done a lot of work with the EAV pattern, and it has served the purpose well enough. I find empty columns, or dynamic columns (like col1, col2, etc) to be much harder to deal with manage after the fact, but it can be easier to query them since you don't need as many joins.

One thing I would very strongly recommend is taking a look at options like Mongo DB. It automatically handles complex dynamic data structures.