I am doing a project. The left column is the category list. Click one of the category, it takes you to the product list page. I can do two ways.

One is hard code the left category, advantage is: fast, no need access database, edit the template(I am uing dreamweaver) to change all the pages has the same categoy column is easy. Disadvantage is not real time, need hard code the template, then apply the template to all pages.

the other way is to retrieve from database, the advantage is real time catgory list. But, slower.

which way do you use?