Ian Bicking has an interesting pieces on using static publishing in a
CMS. The choice
between static and dynamic when building software for the web is a
critical one, and one that I think deserves in-depth discussion.
In a dynamic site, pages are assembled "on the fly" as and when
they are requested. Most PHP powered sites do this and as PHP as a technology
actively encourages dynamic content creation. Generating pages
dynamically allows for all sorts of clever applications, from random quote
generators to full on web applications such as Hotmail.
In a static publishing system, HTML pages are pre-generated by the publishing
software and stored as flat files on the web server, ready to be
served. This approach is less flexible than dynamic generation in many
ways and is often ignored as an option as a result, but in fact the
vast majority of content sites consist of primarily static pages and
could be powered by static content generation without any loss of
functionality to the end user.
The most widespread example of a static publishing system I've seen
is Moveable Type, which
rebuilds static files for a site each time a weblog entry is added or
modified - although it can be configured to serve content dynamically
instead.
At first glance, the benefits of dynamic publishing are obvious.
What is frequently ignored are the benefits of static publishing, at
least for content-driven sites which don't have any heavy need for
dynamic features. The most obvious benefit is performance; serving
static files is what web servers such as Apache are optimised to do,
and they can do it fast. A second advantage is reliability,
as Ian explains:
A
big part is that it takes the pressure off of going live. I can be
sure before going live that the public website is correct. The actual
CMS may explode in flames, but the site will be fine. Going live with
a web application is always a stressful process, and anything that
reduces the stress of that is a great benefit. As time goes on, static
publishing is also a big stress reduction for the system
administrator, since a simple Apache configuration is a lot more
reliable under different loads and configurations than any dynamic
site will be.
I've been developing dynamic sites almost exclusively for the past
two or three years, but a couple of my most recent projects were
static rather than dynamic. These were the LJWorld.com Coupons site and
the KUSports.com photo galleries. I wanted to write both of
these in Python, because doing so would make the process of
transferring them over to our new mod_python powered CMS (currently in development) far less involved.
Unfortunately our main production servers don't currently have
mod_python configured, and we weren't overly keen on setting it up
there for the sake of a couple of small projects. Instead I decided to
write the administration interfaces using Python CGI scripts, but generate
the actual front end pages (which would see far heavier traffic) as
static files.
In addition to the performance and reliability benefits, an
additional benefit is that static generation provides a simple
"staging area" style feature for free. Both the coupons and the
gallery interfaces allow users to make multiple changes to site
content safe in the knowledge that none of the changes will become
visible until the "Publish Site" button is selected. At first I was
worried that this extra step could prove confusing, but in practise it
allows our content producers to make changes in a safe environment,
without fear of accidentally breaking the public site while they are
working.
Static content generation certainly isn't appropriate for every
project, but for plain content sites sites that don't need dynamic
features it's a much more viable option than many people think.
Grok Headline matches for Static content generation
Static HTML Generation With PHP
Static HTML Generation With PHP11/27/2002 09:47 PM Want to reduce the load that MySQL has on your web server? Generating
Static HTML pages to replace queries is the solution. Learn how.
Hot Banana Wins 2005 e-Content Award - Best Content Management System - CMS
Hot Banana Wins 2005 e-Content Award - Best Content Management System - CMS04/08/2005 04:55 AM Hot Banana Software Inc., a leading North American Web Content
Management Suite (CMS) company, announced today that it has won the
2005 e-Content award for the best Content Management System. The
Canadian e-Content Awards are sponsored by the e-Content Institute and
were created to recognize and honor e-content products and services
used by Canadian organizations and individuals. [PRWEB Apr 8, 2005]
Static over RFID
Static over RFID09/13/2004 06:55 AM A key patent holder wants royalties. If that starts a trend, adoption
of radio frequency identification technology could suffer.
Those of us who dabble inside of their PCs have surely, at
one time, concerned themselves with static electricity. Sure you can
take some precautions like getting one of those retarded looking wrist
things or touching some metal object. But why would you want to do
that when you can now spend $29 on a "Static Zapper Pen?" When I first
read the product name, I thought the pen could actually zap people
(like a pen tazer), but I shed a tear to learn that it is for
preventing static shocks.
Dynamic vs Static11/20/2002 12:42 PM Phil Ringnalda proposes a "Half-baked, and a little fried" hybrid
dynamic/static weblog system: While browsing through Rasmus's Tips and
Tricks...
Static Calendar
Static Calendar12/22/2004 01:57 AM Static Calendar Proposal as seen on
Slashdot This is something I found on Slashdot and thougt was
interesting. Judging by the savvy website of the new calendar's
creator, I doubt we'll be having "Newton" months anytime soon. Check
it out.
Rhythmic static06/17/2005 04:25 PM I've occasionally noticed static playing over speakers in roughly the
same rhythm: a quarter note and three triplets. Deeeeet dit-dit-dit
dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit. At first I thought it was something wrong
with my PC speakers or sound card. But I've also heard it over the
headphones while waiting to go live at a professional radio station.
And I heard it over the speakers in the back of a London cab
yesterday. Deeeeet dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit. Deeeeet
dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit. Is this some predictable
electrical noise, like a 60-cycle hum? Or is it a coded message from
our equipment?...
PHP Static Class Variables
PHP Static Class Variables12/02/2002 01:17 PM Static class variables are variables that are shared among all
instances
of a particular class. Although PHP supports static variables in
functions,
it has no support for static variables in classes. This functionality
can be pretty important in some situations, and I will now describe
a way to simulate it.
cwmtx 0.5.0 (Static-dim branch)04/05/2005 05:35 PM
CwMtx is a library written in C++ that provides the matrix and vector
operations that are used extensively in engineering and science
problems. A special feature of this library is the quaternion class
which implements quaternion math. Quaternions are very useful for
attitude determination in 3D space because they do not suffer from
singularities. Furthermore, successive rotations and transformations
of vectors can be accomplished by simple quaternion multiplication.
Attitude dynamics can be expressed in a very compact form using
quaternions
Changes:
A quaternion series smoothing example demonstrating how to use the
cwmtx quaternion class properly has been added. New functions have
been added: sgn(qtn), arg(qtn), exp(qtn), log(qtn), and pow(qtn1,
qtn2).
Cable Debate Generates Static07/15/2004 04:58 AM A House subcommittee hears what's good and bad about roll-your-own
cable, but little is expected to happen until the FCC weighs in.
Michael Grebb reports from Washington.
Web Log Analysis Evolves Beyond Static Reports08/31/2004 02:11 AM In addition to creating the standard reports that you'd expect to see
in a professional web log analysis program, Web Log Storming provides
interactive reports and charts. The program's main strength is its
on-the-fly filtering, allowing you to zero in and study particular
behavior. [PRWEB Aug 31, 2004]
Wireless photos, video hit some static05/11/2004 02:55 PM New U.S. guidelines meant to free up wireless e-mails with attached
photos and videos are getting a mixed reception from carriers.
The Difference Between Online Content And Broadcast Content
The Difference Between Online Content And Broadcast Content02/10/2004 02:46 PM Major League Baseball made news last year for claim
ing to own all in-progress game data - saying they were going to
go after websites that reported what was happening at a game in
real-time. It didn't matter that the law is pretty clear that you
can't copyright facts - MLB believes that just presenting the data is
a "rebroadcast" of the game. That said, I guess it's no surprise to
hear that they now believe that web audio and video broadcasts of
games should work the same way as television broadcasts with a content
provider paying a huge
upfront fee for the rights to the games, and then telling them
they can make it back in ad revenue and subscription fees. Of course,
the various internet sites they've approached with this plan have been
laughing them out the door, and pointing out that they're not
television stations, and they just want to provide something useful to
their users - but aren't going to lose money to do so. While MLB has
been at the forefront of offering streaming video and audio, it
appears they still look on this as a broadcast medium, and not the
interactive medium it actually is. They're doing their best to
squeeze more money out of existing fans, rather than attract new fans,
which is dangerous for the future of the sport. Not only do you anger
your biggest fans, you also make it less likely that you're going to
pick up new fans.
Apple investigating complaints of iPod static04/12/2004 10:02 PM Apple Computer says it is looking into some users' complaints of sound
problems--ranging from crackling sound to interrupted play--with the
iPod Mini. Grok Description matches for Static content generation GrokA matches for Static content generation
Static content generation
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