Rory,
> I'm embarking on a new project and have been reading up on the new v7.3
> functions. I have a few general questions about how to use these and
> whether or not I should use functions exclusively, or also use rules and
> views.
I generally use a mix of views, triggers, and data-push functions.
> Are there any penalties in terms of the speed of execution of a function
> over a view?
A SELECT view will generally be much faster than a rowset-returning function,
and is usually more easily adapted for partial selects, re-ordering, etc.
I have not compared the execution speed of updatable views + rules vs.
data-push functions, as I use the latter almost exclusively since they allow
me to bundle security and rights checking, and custom error messages, into
the same function, something which is more cumbersome with updatable views.
However, it depends on your users and your application. If you have an app
where some of the users will utilize direct SQL access, then rules may be a
better choice.
--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco