Some years back, when I first learned about the N+1 query problem, I had a little bit of difficulty wrapping my mind around it -- or at least the naming of it. Inadvertently making lots of round trips to the database is bad, sure. And the problem gets a lot worse when you have record counts in the thousands (or more) instead of just a handful, sure. But why are we calling this "N+1"?
I eventually realized that the problem is that the nomenclature is backwards, chronologically! The order of operations happening when this problem gets triggered is:
- The database is queried for a list of records. (1 query)
- For each of those records, a follow-up query is made. (N queries)
I started thinking of the problem instead as the "1+N query problem." And for me, at least, the naming immediately became much more intuitive to grasp!
A quick perusal of search results makes it clear that this is a pretty #unpopularopinion. Almost all of the discussion of this problem out there exclusively uses the "N+1" terminology.
I'm going to keep saying "1+N" in conversations with peers, though. I don't mind being one man standing against the tide on this specific issue! 🌊👨💻
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