II article database II

I would like to know your thoughts on what the best way to go about creating an article database interacting with php. I would like for content editors to be able to submit their article via form, which then submits it in to the database. Then I would like my main page to update with the headline of the new articles. The main page would only show the first 5 in the database for each different category type listed in the database. My question is -- which way is most effective use of mysql | php. -- 1) having people insert the entire article through the form, with html code throughout the article which gets submitted directly in to the database? 2) have the people insert the entire article which get's saved as a file which the databse can link to? I guess, I dont want to slow the database down, but I'm not quite sure what the capabilities are for mySQL if I am putting long articles in the database........also what type of datatype would I use for this field in my database (for those of you that are familiar with mySQL)...........Much appreciated. btw, I am new to the list........*ciao