title: in a multi-language site, why would I store some text strings in a database and write other one into the markup?
body: <p>I'm working on an existing multi-language site (Coldfusion/MySQL). </p>
  
  <p>Why is it that on a lot of pages I'm sitting on, some text strings are always <em>hard-coded</em> into the markup like:</p>
  
  <pre><code> &lt;CFIF language = "EN"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hello World&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/CFIF&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>while others use the database to update text like so:</p>
  
  <pre><code> &lt;p&gt;&lt;cfoutput&gt;#tx_greetings#&lt;/cfoutput&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What is the best practice here? I thought if I'm going to use a database for translations, it would be easier to store all texts in there (long and small). If I'm not using a database, then all texts should be <em>if-elsed</em>. Mixing it is a little maintenance-heavy, isn't it?</p>
  
  <p>Also, is there a limit on text-string-length, which I'm storing to MySQL? Maybe performance-wise?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for some inputs!</p>