Work Smarter, Not Harder!

I used to be "dead set against" database driven websites and dynamic websites. They were hard to write the code for if you didn't pay very careful attention to the details, and they still are. It has taken a long time for me to "get with the times" and start doing this very thing.

Don't get me wrong, I still don't really like databases driven websites, and I suppose that part of the reason is that I still don't totally understand databases. I understand the basic concepts, and that's about where my understanding ends.

I have done several websites that were made up of several hundred static pages, and they took me way longer to do than what it should have and not knowing more about databases is the main reason why.

Part of the reason that I was so against databases was because there were several web developers that used them so unnecessarily. In the past, even if a database was set up correctly, it would slow down the load time of a website. Not a lot, and sometimes it wasn't even noticable, but I started to see a trend where a web developer would get a website that was only 10 pages, and to them, if it was over 3 pages in size, then they NEEDED that site connected to a database. Now in defense of these developers, they totally understood databases, and I didn't, and the database driven website allowed these developers to develop a website quickly and easily. Although they were "working smarter, and not harder" the one thing that I disagreed with is that they were not taking the end user into consideration. They didn't care if the load time was slowed down a little because this made their job so much easier (not to mention they probably charged more because they could use the fact that the website needed a database, and automatically people assumed that the price would go up, so they accepted this).

One thing that they didn't consider was the visitors that still used dial up internet access. Dial up internet access is still widely used even today, and even though it's gotten a little faster, even a little thing like connecting to a database (which may end up taking a half second longer to load on DSL or Cable access) could make the load time take up to a few seconds longer.

For myself, "the jury is still out" as to whether to start using databases more often or not. I do have a couple of basic questions that I ask to determine whether a website needs a database or not.

1. Does information, from the visitor, need to be collected, saved for a peroid of time, and then sent to someone? If so, then a database is needed.
2. Does this website need to be really interactive to the end user, and if it does, then how should this be accomplished?
3. Does the website owner (or someone that they have designated) need to be able to input data on the site themselves? Then I have to ask, do THEY need to do this, or is it something that they can send to me and have me to it?

If the information is sensitive, then yes, they need to do it and a database is needed to get and store passwords and user ID's etc. Generally, if this is sensitive information, then they don't want these pages to be found by just anyone, so knowing about website optimization isn't as necessary (keywords, description, links, title etc.)

If the information isn't very sensitive, then it would be easier for them to send the information to me and have me put the information on the page, this way I can optimize the page so it can be found by the search engines easily.

To sum things up, yes, databases can really make you work smarter and not harder, but they are not needed nearly as much as you may think they are.