Don't get me wrong.
There is only a limited number of things a person needs to do at any given time.
I think the failure of most "high tech" sites is that there _are_ too many options.
Then, there are sites with too few options, and the need to do the same keystrokes over and over.
What's dynamic content? In the forum, some people asked for a clock to figure out the 'relative' time. Fine. But I don't need a site to tell me it's TUESDAY when I look at my computer, and see it's already Wednesday, or that it's still Monday.
Usually, since my clock is synced 30x a day, what I find is _their_ clock is off by sometimes a good amount.
Do I really need weather, news, and how many users are logged in on my screen? Depends on what sort of site it is. If I am at weather.com I would _hope_ to see weather on my screen. If I'm nosing around shareware.com _I_COULD_CARE_LESS_.
Is this making sense? What I hate is dynamic content for the sake of dynamic content. If you wander the net, there are some great looking pages, with great stuff on them, and I will never go back. Neither would you.
Dynamic content is _NOT_ what the game is about. It doesn't make pages look "alive" it often makes them annoying, disconcerting, or bothersome.
CONTENT and/or SERVICE is what the game is about. If you offer something people want and/or need, and you present it cleanly then you have a useful site.
I visit many of the monolithic software and hardware sites on a regular basis. Their cgi-scripting is wonderful, it's impressive, and 9 times out of 10 it takes me longer to find what I'm looking for -- if I can find it at all!
I want to see a SEARCH box, and I want it to work.
When I look at the traffic to my sites, that's what _most_ people want as well.
They want what they want, when they want it, and only what they want.
Giving them more just annoys them.
But, there are differences in philosophy, and that is why there are so many choices.
But, I learned my lesson (a lesson my grandfather tried to teach my uncle before I was born) when I was able to break up a collection of 9 different things being sold for $35 (for example) and break it up into it's 9 parts, and sell MORE OF THEM, and sometimes even MULTIPLE PARTS to the SAME PERSON for $50 each... I learned my lesson well. They only wanted part #3 and would pay MORE for it, rather then get all 9 parts for _less_ money.
People want what they want, and only what they want, when they want it.
See, you can even say it differently, and the song remains the same. :)
This is the problem of the web. And of dynamic content. And of multimedia web pages. And of all the stuff that people go "WOW" to once, then get flat-out annoyed having to go through each and every time they log in.
So, yes, dynamic content has a place, but TARGETED content is the future of the Internet, and that can be dynamic, psuedo dynamic, or even static. I've got some non-changing web pages that have been hit 10x more than anything I've got dynamic, simply because the content is relevant to what people are looking for, when they visit that site.
I guess this is what I don't see with PHP as a web site building tool.
The only PHP program I have found useful was phpMyAdmin, and with the MySQLMan program, even that has become problematic. And why did I use it? It gave me what I wanted, when I wanted it, and only what I wanted :) (Once I went through the gymnastics of compiling PHP into my server, that is.)
I've been around too long, and my age is starting to show.
You know what the _best_ example of "dynamic" content was that I've found in months of travelling the web? When I logged back into Netflix a few weeks ago, and when I clicked on "What's playing now" it gave me the listings for _MY_ neighborhood, without me entering a SINGLE THING! (Of course it had my zip code.) I was absolutely stunned, and impressed, and had to flick back and forth with it. Why? ... again.... it was exactly what I wanted, when I wanted it, with nothing I didn't need (like movies _not_ playing near me, etc.) And it took me by surprise. A major upgrade that was actually USEFUL and USER FRIENDLY, and didn't require any input on my part to serve up. I'm actually still impressed with it. Simple, clean, and useful. So un-Web-like <G>.
Oh well, time for bed. Too many late hours.
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