Which data model is optimal for a simple tracker of user views?

Here's more of an academic question for you guys. Say I want to create a model in a ruby on rails app to track simple views information. I would like to record the user_id, the URI for the page viewed, and keep track of the number of times the user has visited a pa开发者_如何学Pythonge.

Model A: One way to do this would be to create a model View with attributes user_id and page (records the uri), and then create a new entry every time a user opens a page.

Model B: A second way to do this would be to add an attribute "page_views" to the model, to track the number of times the user has accessed that page.

Pros and Cons: Model A would have more information recorded and lead to a larger db than Model B. However, Model B would require that a controller search for an existing user-page combination, and either add views to that entry, or create a new one. This leads to a smaller database, but may be worse in scale due to the need to search for existing entries.

So my question to you guys is: which is more important? Are my thoughts wrong? Am I missing something here (other performance considerations overlooked?)

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NoSQL approach to tracking user activity:

model app/models/user.rb
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  include UserModules::Tracker
  ...
end


mixin app/models/user_modules/tracker.rb
module UserModules
  module Tracker

    def get
      key = "user_" + self.id.to_s

      arr = Resque.redis.lrange(key, 0, -1)
      arr.map{|i| JSON.parse(i)}
    end


    def put(controller_name, action_name, details="")
      key     = "user_" + self.id.to_s
      created = Time.now.to_formatted_s(:db)}.to_json

      # silent exception handle, so you can do not run Redis localy
      begin
        Resque.redis.rpush key, {
          :controller_name => controller_name,
          :action_name     => action_name,
          :details         => details,
          :created_at      => created
      rescue
        nil
      end

    end

  end
end


controller app/controller/dashboard.rb
class Dashboard < ApplicationController
  after_filter :track, :only => :show

  # this action will be tracked
  def show
  end

  # this action will show tracking
  def logs_show
    render :json => current_user.get
  end

  ...

  private

  def track
    details = "any details...."
    current_user.put(controller_name, action_name, details)
  end
end

You need to have Redis installed, I prefer to use Resque as common way to setup and initialize Redis via Resque.redis, because it will help you to browse your tracking with resque-web

On of the way to setup Redis is in my gist