I must admit, I'm doing it too. But why oh why, people thing that they must use an sql server, when writing a web application framework. It is beyond me.

Some will say, "Well my/pg/ms/any sql server is fast, it it there, it is ubiquous, flexible and everyone is doing itr, so you can find books about it.

Let's tackle these pros one by one in our context.

Fast

Indeed, it can be. SQL server software is usually designed to work with vast amounts of data, stored on some secondary storage. Relational data can be organised, searched, extracted fast. Sure. But. There is always one. A web application framework doesn't know the exact nature/model of the data. It usually builds a palette of primitive types, then does some magic to join those types per application type. You'll find object-relational mappings, sql synthesis algorithms, others, whend dealing with this problem.

These unfinished series or articles colloects some of my ideas about the programmeable web. I don't pretend them to be original, exclusive or useful to anyone but me. Although I hope so.

To continue my random ramblings on the programmable web let's get into the other side. Theming.

These days it is a common place to have a theme engine available in almost any respectable web application. It's the result of the spearation of concerns mantra and the desire to get designers and arty types off your back, give them the freedom to do almost anything they want, while not bothirng yourself (as a developr/admin) with too much unnessesary support requests. Theme engines and ideas how to build them are plenty. They differ a lot. But let's try and dissect what are they doing, or more likely what should they do.

I've been playing lately with a lot of different ideas. Part of it is to further my own education, part of it is looking for good software design tips. Although there exist quite a few good applications or frameworks, both open source and closed, I can't recommend any as really flexible. By really flexible, I mean easy ways to change its behaviour, how it reacts to the outside world. Most frameworks and applications excell at being themselves, and are rarely excelling at being really good citizens, they are inward looking, as far as their configuration and query is concerned. These are bold statements. They are quite subjective and probably useless. I'll try to explain what I really mean by positive examples.