Re: Application using PostgreSQL (off topic,

Daniel T. Staal wrote:
> On Thu, November 17, 2005 3:49 pm, William Yu said:
>
>
>>This means using tables inside of tables, repetitive formatting tags and
>>other prehistoric techniques. The HTML ends up being much bloated but
>>then I turn on gzip encoding so the impact isn't that big. I also avoid
>>too much formatting because I believe in letting the user choose
>>whatever font type/size he's comfortable with.
>
>
> The biggest problem with pages like that isn't the size: it is the
> maintenance.  A large CSS site can be redesigned by changing one file, but
> using old-style formatting you'll end up having to change every page.
> (And hope you don't make a mistake, or forget one.)
>
> Still, they are nice if you only need a few pages.
>
> But this isn't a webdesign list.  ;)

I'll clarify more in terms of relevance to developing webapps using
PostgreSQL. I readily use CSS and/or server-side includes for static web
pages. It's a no brainer for HTML maintained by hand.

But for dynamically-generated websites, I stick with old-school HTML.
While the final output source looks ugly, the code itself is just a
series of variables defining the various look & feel aspects + overrides
of those variables based on who's viewing the page and what they're
viewing. Maintenance is roughly the same as with CSS -- alter a single
client_ABC_config.pl that contains all the look & feel variables (versus
altering a single client_ABC_config.css with all the element properties).