35 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
35 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
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---
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tags: [world-wide-web]
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created: Friday, December 20, 2024
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---
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# Dynamic and static websites
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When we talk about dynamic and static websites we are talking about the role of
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the server, not anything to do with how the website behaves for the user.
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A static site's content comes unchanged from the files on the server whereas a
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dynamic site's content is generated on the server.
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With a static website, the content of the site has been build before a request
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for it is made. It's HTML, CSS and JS are stored on the server and are simply
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returned to the client in this form when they are requested.
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When content is requested on a dynamic website the HTML is generated on-the-fly
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on the server-side and returned to the client. Typically a request will be made
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for an item of content, the data will be fetched on the backend from a DB and
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then formatted as HTML and sent back to the client.
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Static websites can be more performant because of the lack of BE processing
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however it means that any runtime processing or special rendering must be
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handled by the frontend JavaScript, without relying on server languages.
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Take the sourcing of remote data. With a dynamic site this can be handled in a
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single request because the backend can fetch the data and return to the client
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with the rendering applied. On the frontend, JS would have to make a request to
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an endpoint that calls a backend service that returns the data. Having received
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the raw data it would then need to render it.
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Nowadays there is generally a mixed approach. This distinction was more
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important in the early days of the web.
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