Hi all,
Having worked on a couple of Spectra projects and having seen what can
happen if you follow the development methodology of having users create
pages with containers I'm wondering more and more if containers should be
the exception as opposed to the norm. Most of the things containers do can
be handled more quickly and more errorproof with custom tags.
Consider the following disadvantags of containers:
* if an object gets removed in the webtop that was assigned to the
container, it is not automatically removed from the container and can create
errors in page execution.
* containers are slow to execute. Having more than a couple of them on the
page can slow page processing down considerably.
* when you allow users to create pages with unique containerids, large
amounts of pages will bring/slow your server down, because the SLM is
preloaded in server-memory. It will also render your snazzy SLM tree
incredibly slow.
* container rules have edit handlers that allow multiple settings per rule.
However, every setting that is different from the same rule in another
container requires a unique containerid, costing performance.
* containers mix database content (a container record, rule record) with
programmatic functionality (show me all the press releases)
* ...
Containers do offer advantages over customized solutions:
* users can select/change publishing rules easily allowing a functionality
change without technical intervention.
* containers can be secured, cached, logged, syndicated and offer a uniform
environment for in-line rule editing.
* ...
It seems to me that the idea of containers is related to the concept of
isolating back end users from the techies. If a system is well prepared, you
can do a lot with containers, switching publishing rules, allowing metadata
keyword selection, etc.
However, I found in practice that users don't want to have this flexibility.
They want to be able to add a press release and know that it appears on page
so and so. Basically, an object centered and wizard based approach. Most of
the snazzy stuff you can do by having multiple rules available with edit
handlers is not used by editors because it's too complicated. They are
changed only at major site changes when the techies are involved anyway.
Much of the settings of rules therefore, have to be applied under the hood
or are set once and then forgotten for a long time. Much of the front-end
flexibility of the container is therefore not really necessary. And if it's
done under the hood, why not use custom tags?
I can see the use of containers, but I can't see anymore why they play such
a prominent part in the development methodology.
As I'm working on my current project, I want to balance custom tags and
containers in an ideal way. I'm hoping to start a discussion here on how and
when to use flexible containers, fixed containers and when it is better to
use custom tags. This idea also came up in an earlier thread about the use
of containers. I'm definitely interested in hearing about experiences, good
and bad. I guess, I'm also looking for some insight on why Allaire created
containers and how they think it should be used. What was the philosophy
behind them and what experiences have come back through the channels?
Kind regards,
Marc Schipperheyn
<theFactor.e>
Premium Partner for Macromedia
The future is technological, but it will not be a world of gray steel
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