I see a lot of folks using various forms of dynamic code on their websites and have to wonder why?.
Dynamic content and gee-gaws are all well and good. Sometimes it can add to things, supplement a weblog entry, link to related stuff. Other times it detracts from the experience. It can easily get in the way and far too often it does.
For example, I had a googlebox in an early version of my weblog. It was ‘staticly dynamic’ though, it was generated on the fly every time I republished my blog. I removed it after a while because it cluttered things too much. I also ditched the more graphic intensive version of this weblog for a more back-to-basics one.
Now the focus is on the content, and not on the whizzbang stuff. I’ll add back anything dynamic or pseudodynamic if it makes sense, but it’ll have to be really good. Sometimes the dynamic content is just gratuitous. Every once in awhile though, it’s quite useful.
It’s interesting to see referrers and weblog stats. I yearn for trackbacks on my blog, but I’m currently doing without. Sam Ruby adds an excerpt of my blog entry if I point to one of his posts. For awhile, Mark was compiling a ‘related reading’ section based on referrers and such. Stuff like this seems to make sense to me and probably does not consume the resources that an every-page-on-the-fly weblog or site might.