What is an appropriate scenario

For using dynamically generated web pages?

[martinibuster]

I'm thinking that Amazon is a great application of the technology, where you fill in a template with images and text appropriate for a query.

But I also see this applied to websites with maybe thirty web pages that could be hand made the regular way- is that overkill or doing things the hard way? Is there a benefit if you are serving those thirty pages to a thousand users per day?

Thanks.

[ronburk]

a) I can easily generate pages for different clients from a single source (text-only for Lynx, simple HTML for WebTV, and flat-out fancy CSS for the latest crop of browsers).

b) I can focus on content first, knowing that my crappy initial design can be changed by modifying one or two template files.

c) Having separated my content out as simple XML data, I can much more easily repurpose it (e.g., into helpfiles, or PDF, or...).

[Nick_W]

I'd use a decent templating system [smarty.php.net] for a 30 page site.

Together with CSS it'll give you a good consistent feel that won't be chore to update and that each new page will folllow to the letter.

Nick

[TGecho]

It also seems like the best way to let clients update their own site if that's what they want. Between that and templating it would have to be a pretty small, static site for me to not consider something "dynamic."

[killroy]

I also wrote a little CMS so that each content page doesn'T contain any HTML, and all formatting is done with simple line spacing. So it only takes me about 5 minutes to turn a raw text file form my copywriter into a finished document with SEOed header tags and lists and all. And it'S easy to modify as the data is stored in a simple HTML free text format.

SN

[txbakers]

With a DB and active pages you can cut down the number of files you need to maintain.

I reently completed a website for an event which needed a page for each group and a page for each member, plus pages for pictures, etc. The entire site has 5 actual html (asp really) pages, with all the data kept in the database to pull the appropriate content.