How should i store data like users's gender, religion, political views which is selecting from a list of 2-8 max values like 'male', 'female' or 'orthodox', 'muslim','judaism','catholic' etc? Also this values is constant, even admin cannot change 'female' to something else. In a Database it looks wierd to store a similar tables with only this 2-8 values and make JOIN with a parent table on foreign key. Second way - special object inside program code - but it's always bad to mix program logic with a data.
Whether or not something is looking "weird" depends on personal preferences or design structures. However, it is entirely logical to store anything in a database that has to do with, well, data. Even a given set of options can change in the distant or not so distant future. I can't count the times a client asked me to change a set of options a day, a week, or even a few years after having ensured me that the set wouldn't change, ever.
Storing a list of options in a separate table is part of a relational database design. Relational database designs make it easy to get a set of data which includes or even excludes the options in any way in my opinion.
I'd recommend doing it the good, old fashioned way, for example:
user (id, user_name)option (id, option_label)user_option (id, user_id, option_id)A user that is both male and catholic would have a relation with two options:
Table user Table option Table user_option
+----+-----------+ +----+--------------+ +----+---------+-----------+
| id | user_name | | id | option_label | | id | user_id | option_id |
+----+-----------+ +----+--------------+ +----+---------+-----------+
| 1 | john | | 1 | male | | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | melody | | 2 | female | | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| 3 | gerald | | 3 | orthodox | +----+---------+-----------+
+----+-----------+ | 4 | muslim |
| 5 | judaism |
| 6 | catholic |
+----+--------------+
Showing all selected options per user can be done with the following query:
SELECT `u`.*, GROUP_CONCAT( `o`.`option_label` SEPARATOR ', ' ) AS `options`
FROM `user` AS `u`
LEFT JOIN `user_option` AS `uo` ON `uo`.`user_id` = `u`.`id`
LEFT JOIN `option` AS `o` ON `uo`.`option_id` = `o`.`id`
It must go in a table, even if it make you makes joins. The join will be done over a PK, so there is little overhead