i was just wandering because i was planning to use a lot of php includes for my deal site does it go slower when you use it to much?

I've never experienced any performance related issues while using php includes, but like any function, I'm sure if you use it a lot things will start to slow down. Of course in terms of computing a lot is A LOT, I think you'll be fine so long as your 'a lot' isn't some huge amount, I'd venture to say even with as many as 20 you'd be fine, but if that is the case you might have some organizational issues.

There will be some marginal slow down with a huge number of includes ( see http://www.webmaster-talk.com/php-fo..._contents.html )

But you are talking hundreds of includes for it to be noticeable, Unless your server is an seriously under powered, overloaded piece of crud.

Of course, I thinks every single bit of code will slow down slightly your script.. but there are always ways to optimize your scripts

If you use some unoptimized database queries then the slowdown caused by DB will be much more noticeable comparing to includes. And yes, Chris is right, if your server is not a P1-133 under 1k hits/second the decrease caused by includes will hardly be larger than 1% comparing to the same functionality performed by single solid script.