Subject: Re: In re includes

[Karen G. Schneider]

Is my face red... I took the "performance hit" truism at face value (I read
it on the web, how can it be wrong) and did not test this myself--though I
had evidence before me suggesting what Roy said is true. The one time I
included an SSI on a website (to input a date, I believe) I used an .html
extension because I didn't know better, and I didn't detect any difference,
not that I was measuring that closely.  I wasn't expecting a performance
hit, but then, I wasn't expecting not to have one (if you can follow me
along this meandering thought)

However, since my face is already red, go ahead and smear some egg on it.
May I naively ask: what the heck's the difference?  I mean, why not use the
.shtml extension and just parse the one file?  Why do I keep encountering
such passion on this topic?  Is there something else about the .shtml
extension we should know?  (I mean, other than why make an unnecessary
change... or have to tell users to use specific extensions... though this is
a good point in and of itself, simplicity being a Good and True Virtue; or
perhaps, simply the point of "it's just not true," which I also believe is
compelling--we do not need old spouses' tales in web development)

> I agree with Karen on a lot of things, but for this small thing I must
> take exception. After wrestling long and hard with my sysadmins over SSIs,
> I finally located a message from someone that said that they had detected
> no performance hit from parsing *all* html files for SSIs (this allows you
> to keep the standard ".html" extension). This was the piece of evidence
> that put me over the top, and we have been parsing *all* of our html
> documents ever since, with *no* detectable performance hit. And in prime
> time, we do 10,000 real (non image) hits an hour. Sure, your mileage may
> vary, but don't always take the common wisdom at face value.
> Roy Tennant

Karen G. Schneider kgs at bluehighways.com
Assistant Director of Technology
Shenendehowa Public Library, Clifton Park, NY
http://www.shenpublib.org