Question

If you were to build a badge system similiar to how SO does it, would you put the logic/business layer in the database directly (via stored procedure, scheduled sql jobs) or put it in the server side?

From what I can think of, you have to:

1. list badges that pertain to the current user action
2. check if the user has a badge already or not
3. insert badge for user

Potential options

1. business logic in the web application that calls stored procedures etc.
2. stored procedures ONLY
3. sql server job that runs every x minutes
4. windows service that runs every x minutes

Would a combination of these be required? I think it would since some badges are based on milestones for a given question, maybe a batch job is better?

Update

A system where you can modify the badge system, then re-run the entire badge linking for everyone would be even better. i.e. say you change the logic for some badges, now you have to re-apply it to all the questions/answers/votes/etc.

interesting problem to solve!!

Answer 1

I would recommend putting all business logic in the business layer. I recommend this for a few reasons:

• Keep the business logic in one language / place
• Scalability – You can partition data, implement different caching mechanisms, etc.
• Seperation of concerns – let your DB do what it does best…store data, let your programming language make decisions on that data.