>The system I'm currently developing will eventually be using client-server data, but the initial implementation will be file-based. So it seemed like a perfect solution to use local views now, and 'switch' them to remote later. Except that the views are incredibly slow!
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>The four tables take 3 seconds to open. Opening the four corresponding views (no joins, nodata, fully optimized) takes 20 seconds! (Subsequent requries are fast).
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>It seems I'd be better off wihout the views, just use filter conditions on the main tables.
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>Am I doing something obviously wrong? Is this the normal behavior of local views? If so, why would anyone make such a performance sacrifice to use them?

Are these just direct views of one table (SELECT * FROM...) or are they multitable views? Are you filtering your views using WHERE and are you sure they're fully optimized?