Caching, Html, Php, & Speed

[son0fhobs]

Greetings!

 

I'm pretty sure I'm just showing off my ignorance here, but...

 

This sounds ridiculous for a million reasons, but first my point is speed, then I'll mention the logistics:

Long story short, what if rather than uploading the php, grab the HTML that it outputs, and upload that instead (or deliver that from the server to users instead)?  In other words, the page would be predominantly if not completely HTML instead of Php.

 

How much of this does server side caching do?  Not sure how much client side does, but client side still has to load everything the first time.

 

Do search engine spiders read cached websites? My point is, would there be any situation in which "building" the webpage with pure html as apposed to Php would help speed, whether minimal SEO, first user visit, or other?

 

Obvious objections:

There's a million little things that could create problems for usability, but if I were to create a function where Php reads a file, or most of it, (the outputted html from the original php webpage), writes a new one of predominantly HTML, and uploads/overwrites, or changes the appropriate permalink, with a lot of necessary details and customizations, I think it's a feasible feat.

 

However, I feel like there's another service or feature that essentially does just that, is there?  Aside from maintainability, usability, etc, would it help/hurt speed?

 

Thanks for your help!

Cheers!

 

[malinens]

Didn't understand a word  but...

 

PHP most tasks do very, very fast so full caching will not get performance boost at all.

 

By caching more difficult tasks (SQL queries, file operations and others) You can gain significant speed boost.

[Philip]

The difference in speed would most likely be negligible for most people on that level. Caching does help, but you might as well just let PHP create the cache on the first load instead of you manually doing it. What is your goal in doing this?

[son0fhobs]

Cool, that gives me a pretty good answer, thank you!

 

I was doing a css/html website for someone, and aside from simplicity, functionality, and practicality of php, I was considering if/what the speed difference was. 

 

Thanks again!  Cheers!

[jawef]

If your content is static and it is produced with some PHP program then you definitely should do what you mentioned (produce it once as html and use it this way). If the content is rather static (meaning that it is changed rarely) then, it also has point to store it and use it as html (all time losses will charge the administrator of the site … but this is something that he should be ready to deal).

 

In my point of view there are two separate different scopes of cashing. Application scope and thread (user) scope, this has to do with objects and how your application – site works. If you don’t need a programming language like PHP and you are fine with HTML produced by PHP there is nothing wrong to that. This is just my opinions (and not “the truth”) and I hoped that I contribute sharing with you.

 

(We all are ignorance in one field or other, starting from that is a very good sign for your feature)

 

[Sogo7]

The web is a big place and few would dare  make claim to know all of its meanderings, we are but river pilots each knowing thier particular stretch. Just as many 'Web Designers' can't code for toffee so it is that even a javascript guru will oft be found making a dogs breakfast of a simple  SQL query and come asking for help.

 

Speaking of javascript, overuse is one of the classic novice site builders mistakes that results in slow loading times. Keep the fancy effects to a minimum and avoid making requests to external services such as RSS feeds or Font Embedding API's