What is a Dynamic Website?
A web page that displays different content each time it is viewed is known to be a Dynamic Website. For example, a web page may change any time of day, the user that accesses the webpage, or the type of user interaction. There are two types of dynamic web pages.
CLIENT-SIDE SCRIPTING
Web pages that change with response to an action within a web page, such as a mouse or a keyboard action, use client-side scripting.
Client-side scripts generate client-side content. Client-side content is content that is generated on the user’s computer rather than the server.
Scripting languages like JavaScript and Flash enable a web page to respond to client-side events.
SERVER-SIDE SCRIPTING
Web pages that modify when a web page is loaded or visited use server-side scripting. Server-side content is content that is generated once a web page is loaded. For example, forums, submission forms, login pages and shopping carts, all happen to use server-side scripting since those web pages change according to what is submitted to it.
Scripting languages like PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, ColdFusion and Perl allow a web page to respond to submission events.
A dynamic website is built to make use of functions that contain all the main layouts and global components of a site. We term these specific functions in each page accordingly. But what makes a dynamic website so efficient?
Let’s take a look into the main advantages of building dynamic websites.
Code of Website Conduct
By chance if all the pages in your website are made statically, each time you wish to update a common layout throughout the whole website, you would need to iterate through every page and create the changes line-by-line, and page-by-page.
This would make multiple corrections seem tedious and time consuming. Making your website dynamic makes it much easier for you to maintain your code and easily keep track of all changes done.
Maintaining your website code should be easy for you to understand and not a nightmare.
Keeping your webpage updated
If your main goal is to progressively enhance your website, to keep up with the latest web technologies, and apply continual updates and improvements to your layout and design, then implementing a dynamic structure will make tasks easier to apply and less time-consuming.
In a dynamic website, all the global layouts are saved into separate functions, so later we can simply re-touch something in a particular page and see the results immediately taking affect in multiple pages.
Improving your workflow
Your workflow becomes more productive and efficient. Although it would take you a while to implement the basic structure of a dynamic layout, eventually making a new page is as simple as copying an existing file, and updating the content inside it.
Keep in mind that a dynamic website is not only there to help us manage the layout of the page. One of the main advantages is the use of web components.
Once you have created the basic dynamic structure, preparation for a new project becomes a breeze.
Preparing a reusable template
Another excellent advantage of implementing a dynamic system is having a base template that you could reuse for individual projects. Common layouts like headers, footers and side menus are nearly inevitable for each web project.
Saving a boilerplate layout for future developments can heavily improve your productivity when commencing new projects. You can execute the basic structure in a couple of hours and focus on more complex things or the requested custom options.
By time and practice you will notice that building a custom layout for your clients can be done in a just a couple of days.
Keep your website DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)
Haven’t you heard of this term DRY? You should be aware that every programmer and developer strives to keep their code as clean and efficient as possible. This does not just make your code easier to maintain, but also improves your productivity and workflow.
If you wish to continue improving your web-development skills, it is apt you should start by building your own unique workflow that you find yourself comfortable with. Once you get a hang to this approach, you will be able to focus more on learning new methods and technologies that you can continuously apply to your web-development knowledge.
When should you use the dynamic approach?
Avoid implementing a dynamic structure for a website that contains only a couple of pages. Websites that contain only single- page or portfolio website pages need not usually require the effort to make them dynamic, as maintaining a just couple of pages will not make such a huge difference. A good example of implementing a dynamic structure is if your website contains a blog page, where the layout of the page will stay the same, but the content changes depending on the chosen article.