[thelist] ssi or php

[Shirley Kaiser, SKDesigns]

At 02:10 AM 3/8/2006, Juha Suni typed:
>Elly wrote:
> >>> Which is more efficient, best practices way to include header +
> >>> footer files that don't contain php -- using ssi or php?
> > I know how to do it. That was not my question. My question, and the
> > Subject, is "ssi or php?"
>
>I'd recommend using PHP. Efficiency isn't really an issue with a simple
>include, and you'd get the freedom to add php-stuff inside those headers and
>footers later on, should need be.

I agree with this, Elly. I've used both SSI and PHP includes -- SSI 
for quite a few years, and PHP within the last couple of years. You 
can use conditional SSI, of course, to do some if/else stuff, but I 
think you'll find PHP far more flexible for lots of goodies in the long run.

I'm also not a programmer, but I've learned enough PHP with my Web 
site design work to use PHP includes pretty well, add if/else 
conditions to customize navigation depending on the page, and set up 
easy-to-manage templates for Web sites this way. My head starts to 
spin upside down with much more than that, and I'll leave the rest to 
programmers who know what they're doing. ;-)

I'm sure there are benchmark test stats somewhere that can tell you 
if SSI or PHP is actually faster for what you want to do, and maybe 
some who know server-side stuff better can tell you the answer to 
that one. I haven't noticed any difference in page download times 
using either approach, but I haven't done official testing for that, either.

HTH!

Warmly,
Shirley

-- 
Shirley E. Kaiser, M.A.,  SKDesigns  mailto:skaiser1 at skdesigns.com
Website Design, Development      http://skdesigns.com/
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