I’d love MT to avoid all that re-rendering too. It’s one of the issues you face when dealing with static file generation systems. If it served up requests dynamically (preferably from a cache of somekind), in a Cofax, Manila, or Zope (if I recall) like way, (not Blogger, Radio or GreyMatter which are static file generators also), the updating of design wouldn’t have to involve so much re-rendering since that would happen on a per-request basis. If you had a site with thousands and thousands of pages, static file generators can be real pains in the ass, re-creating each peace of content with the new design. Some conceal this behavior better then other’s but it’s still occuring. Of course a dynamic system has a whole host of other fun issues 🙂 I wonder if you can have clean URLs with a CGI based system? Hmmmmm. Gotta look into it. It’s all about compromises 🙂
The last time I attempted to talk about this kinda stuff at my site I got misunderstood and flamed. Let’s see what happens this time.
If I’ve misunderstood something – e-mail me before flaming me ok? Let’s be civilized.
Sure you can have pretty URLs with a dynamically generated system. URLs don’t refer specifically to file-system files, but to resoruces. The server decides what to serve based on the URL. I haven’t actually programmed CGI so I can’t say what the exact technique is. I suspect one could use Apache’s mod_rewrite (I think that is what it is called) to some effect.