Edeyn,

I'll make an assumption here that when you say it took 15 minutes to code the table in your example that you were talking about coding in HTML. So please forgive me if I'm wrong in that assumption. This is in no way meant as a put down or anything like that.

The blog engine that runs this site is Drupal and it uses a SQL, probably MySQL, backend for the database, a PHP5 scripting engine and Apache for the web server.

To write safe code in PHP takes a good understanding of programing principles and PHP5 in particular, and an even better understanding of secure coding practices. To get that code integrated into Drupal means that you also have to understand Drupal and the way it does things along with understanding the various tables within the database and what each of the table fields does and what kind of information is stored within that table. Much of that data is encoded into a form that is not easily read by a human. Like date and time encoded as the number of seconds that has elapsed since a fixed date, of which I can't remember what that date is.

Since this is a production site any code that Erin, Bob, Sephrena, etc. would come up with would have to be thoroughly tested to make sure that, 1 it works and 2 that it doesn't introduce any security vulnerabilities that might compromise this site and each of the site visitor's PCs.

Blogs are currently one of the most used ways to compromise people's PCs, to steal information or take over a blog user's PC. Most of these exploits take advantage of poor coding in the code that runs the blog. Usually this is done by using a SQL injection attack to put unwanted code into the database and have it fed to every visitor on the site. Drupal has undergone 3 highly recommended security updates within the last few months to fix problems that allow this kind of attack to take place. The people behind Drupal work very hard to make sure that Drupal is safe and secure, but even with their extensive coding background, code reviews, beta testing etc., serious bugs still slip through. Erin and co don't have the resources to do all of these things.

Erin also pointed out that the next version of Drupal 6.x will likely have what you are looking for so the effort required to produce the required code by Erin and her admins is not likely worth it or the potential risk to the site and it's viewers PCs.

While it may be simple to write some HTML code to achieve what you have suggested, the automated coding of something like this is far more complicated.

Why not just code it by hand then? Well as recent events in both Erin's and Sephrena's lives have shown, real life has a way of crashing down on you when you least expect it. Anything that increases the workload of the wonderful people running this site, unless absolutely necessary, should be avoided.

Again Edeyn, if I'm out of line I do apologize.

Arwen