 Why do web frameworks always use database?
byoung2: I'm designing an information-heavy web site (static content, no user content), and have been wondering the best way to do it. Look into Movable Type (http://movabletype.com/).  It is written in Perl and it writes static html files.  
I did the redesign of http://www.steves-digicams.com/ in Movable Type 4.23 and there are over 12,000 pages.  Movable Type generates the static files at publish time in about as much time as Wordpress takes.A big advantage of using static files on Steve's Digicams is that it is very easy to replicate across a load-balanced network of servers without the hassle of having to load-balance MySQL with a master-slave configuration.