I am planning a website that will have many many pages of content (text with an image or two on each page). It's mainly a content based health information website and then I will attach a forum and blog to it for user interaction. So I'm wondering which route to go. I want the site to be fast loading and easy to navigate. I am debating whether to create it using XHTML and CSS as backbone and throw in PHP includes for the common areas like header, footer, ad spaces, and other areas of the page that I might want to edit regularly, and then just using the same standard template page everytime I want to add content. This will allow me to have a hierarchical structure also, so i can group things into folders, etc. And I can have different templates for different categories, e.g. one template for STD's and another for Genetic disorders, all under the same site. My other option is ofcourse to use a CMS like Drupal or use WP and make adding content easier. But then I'll have to maintain a database and do updates whenever the CMS updates. What do you guys think? Which option would make for a faster loading site? I don't want too many frills, and honestly I'm more accustomed to just using HTML and CSS instead of CMSs because I find CMSs too resource heavy, but then I've never built a website with thousands of pages using just HTML and CSS before so I'm not sure which way is better. Any help appreciated!!!
Drupal 6 is coming soon, probably sometime this year, since the current version is Drupal 5.6. But just cause of the ease of maintenance for Drupal, I would totally recommend it. I'm building two sites on it over just building XHTML pages in PHP w/ includes. It makes updating a lot easier I feel. -CSSDevMonkey
How would the loading speed compare? Also, why Drupal 6, is 5.6 not as good? How easy is it easy to update Drupal when you've made a lot of changes and have lots of modules?