[vworld-tech] Database usage

[Brian Hook]

I've successfully started using PostgreSQL (sidenote: is that not like 
the crappiest name EVER for ANYTHING?), but I'm doing it for pretty 
much straight up databasey stuff, e.g.

SELECT * from ITEMS where item_id = x;

I haven't done anything with databases before (I have someone else 
helping me with the DB schema so I don't do a bunch of idiotic first 
time crap), so I'm curious about the following:

- how do others use the database?  How frequently is the DB hit?  I'm 
currently caching query results to minimize the traffic to the DB 
server.  Do people actually query the DB at run-time or do they try to 
only do it at load time?

- what kind of performance issues should I start stressing about?