You may come from a time when you did have to wring every last performance gain from a piece of hardware. However, it is (somewhat) true that the cost/benefit analysis is moving more toward just throwing more hardware at a problem. Engineers, especially good ones, aren't cheap; hardware is. So while you may not be impressed, I find knowing when to spend less money to accomplish the same task "smart".
Now, that doesn't mean that proper database design should be thrown out the window. I am actually somewhat ADD when it comes to relations, constraints, indexing, etc. But there comes a time when it just makes sense to do the cost effective thing, and I would hope that is what digg does.
results IS impressive
You may come from a time when you did have to wring every last performance gain from a piece of hardware. However, it is (somewhat) true that the cost/benefit analysis is moving more toward just throwing more hardware at a problem. Engineers, especially good ones, aren't cheap; hardware is. So while you may not be impressed, I find knowing when to spend less money to accomplish the same task "smart".
Now, that doesn't mean that proper database design should be thrown out the window. I am actually somewhat ADD when it comes to relations, constraints, indexing, etc. But there comes a time when it just makes sense to do the cost effective thing, and I would hope that is what digg does.