I'm currently learning Drupal, on advice from a friend. I seem to recall a lot of people liking Expression Engine and Wordpress.

Is there a "best" in terms of CMS?

8/21/2009 5:39:46 PM

This is also relevant to my interests.

I was considering Contribute (my school already has a license) for some technologically impaired teachers.

8/21/2009 5:54:14 PM

Joomla is stupidly powerful.

8/21/2009 5:55:23 PM

i've used both wordpress and joomla. both are easy as hell to set up and get something working. if you want to start customizing stuff, expect a steeper learning curve

8/21/2009 6:00:09 PM

I would like to start customizing stuff! There was another CMS I heard about that's supposed to be more powerful that Drupal, but a lot harder. I think it was called Xoops.

8/21/2009 7:08:02 PM

I've used all of these:

Drupal - stupid hard to theme
Joomla - too many fucking plugins, plus there's 2 different branched versions that are supported, so some plugins aren't available for one or the other - plus their site is a general organizational nightmare. the CMS itself isn't too too bad, though.
Wordpress - by far the most painless to install and maintain, although if you're deciding to do anything HEAVY, then you'll probably want to look elsewhere.
Expression Engine - sort of the same as wordpress to me, I'm pretty "meh" about it.
MODx - The most robust one I've used, and by far the most accessible.


One I've been meaning to try out:

Umbraco - ASP.NET



Overall, "best" is determined by your initial scope-of-work.

Meaning: What are you going to be doing with the site?

[Edited on August 21, 2009 at 7:56 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2009 7:55:09 PM

I'm actually just trying to build my skill set. Several people have stated Drupal is the way to go (but I hang around a bunch of FLOSS nerds).

I'm finding Drupal to be fairly easy and to have a lot of neat plugins. Perhaps I will give MODx a try.

8/21/2009 8:12:56 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_management_system

Quote :

"There are six main categories of CMS, with their respective domains of use: * Enterprise CMS (ECMS) * Web CMS (WCMS) * Document management system (DMS) * Mobile CMS * Component CMS * Media content management system "

Which one are you looking towards primarily? And, for what purpose / use? I can speak highly of free or enterprise software, depending on how software will be utilized.

8/23/2009 12:01:44 AM

A couple of people at my company have websites that are run by Movable Type. They said its stupid easy to setup and simple to customize stuffs.

8/23/2009 9:23:26 AM

i like wordpress

whats everybodys take on dot net nuke?

8/23/2009 10:51:54 AM

I mean

It would be nice if Spontaneous actually gave us some small hint of what he was trying to accomplish. There is no one "best" CMS.

8/23/2009 11:27:54 AM

That's fair. I'm just trying to learn all of the tools that are out there, primarily free and/or open source. I had several ideas for web sites, but after doing some research, they turned out to be too broad, too niche-y, or too daunting for one person to take on.

To narrow the search, what do companies want people to know or have experience with? I'm guessing all of them.

8/23/2009 5:48:58 PM

Are we talking major corporations? Because the answer is most likely their own custom CMS. There are plenty of huge websites than run on common platforms, though; Ford.com runs on Wordpress (or at least used to).

If you're trying to learn some type of marketable skill, don't pigeonhole yourself by becoming a "Wordpress expert." Know PHP (or ASP or whatever) and SQL backwards and forwards and you'll be able to easily adapt to most environments.

--

Also

Quote :

"I'm just trying to learn all of the tools that are out there"

I know I just said to not over-specialize, but this is just silly. It's impossible to learn everything well unless you are the person Noen thinks he is. I know you've made a lot of these threads, you seem to just be throwing shit against the wall and trying to make something stick. The first step is figuring out exactly wtf you want to do.

And I'm not trying to be a dick here, seriously.

[Edited on August 23, 2009 at 6:17 PM. Reason : ]

8/23/2009 6:13:53 PM

i use and generally dislike drupal

i would like to try out modx and/or impresscms next chance i get

8/23/2009 6:51:57 PM

^^ Fuck, it's high school and college all over again (the figuring out what I want to do part, not people being frustrated with my short attention span part).

I should probably just take some classes at Wake Tech. I'm so out of touch with what people want these days and I'm also afraid that all the great rich internet applications have already been made.

[Edited on August 23, 2009 at 7:37 PM. Reason : .]

8/23/2009 7:35:48 PM

Don't worry, the dudes with all the good ideas yet to be created need code monkeys, too.

8/23/2009 7:44:17 PM

Quote :

"Know PHP (or ASP or whatever) and SQL backwards and forwards and you'll be able to easily adapt to most environments."

pretty much


FWIW the concept of a CMS is the same for all, so I started out learning Wordpress and then when I couldn't find plugins that worked for what I needed, learning PHP.


PHP ended up being the more valuable skill. Knowing Wordpress without knowing PHP is like playing with DUPLO blocks instead of LEGO. Not too impressive.

8/23/2009 8:10:30 PM

I am learning PHP and SQL, sweet!

I downloaded a video series that actually shows you how to make a lightweight CMS. It's ostensibly simple.

8/23/2009 9:14:58 PM

i tell you what though. during my recent job hunt, there were many fewer open php positions, and they almost always paid less than say a .net or java or dba position.

i cut my teeth on php though, so it's not a bad place to start. esp if you're building something that YOU want to build. iow, if you have ideas and want to create something, use php. if you are trying to learn a skill that will be marketable to employers, php might not be the best choice.



[Edited on August 23, 2009 at 9:34 PM. Reason : now that i think about it, php was the fourth language i learned. so not really teeth cutting]

8/23/2009 9:23:49 PM

100% true

The Indians have learned PHP

We're all doomed

[Edited on August 23, 2009 at 9:30 PM. Reason : PHP is the easiest language to learn programming concepts, imo. That's why people laugh at PHP devs.]

8/23/2009 9:27:35 PM

lol

8/23/2009 9:29:47 PM

.NET, eh? Ugh. If that's where the jobs are, I guess...

8/23/2009 9:44:28 PM

Quote :

"I am learning PHP and SQL, sweet! I downloaded a video series that actually shows you how to make a lightweight CMS. It's ostensibly simple."

I definitely would recommend going through that process, especially if it's a well-designed course. It will give you a much better intuitive understanding of what's going on under the hood than if you started out with Drupal and a user's manual, plus give you some experience tracing through code, which will come in handy once you reach a point when you need to customize something in one of the big CMS packages.

I started out learning by doing my own basic HTML sites with some little Javascript and PHP script gimmicks, then got a job doing database work in VSAM/DB2 with COBOL--it was some menial shit (and COBOL, for god's sake), but I really got a good sense of how large-scale databases are designed from the ground up. From there, I built my own music site that had a completely custom-written CMS; eventually I added one section to it in Wordpress because it's nice when you can leverage a larger user base and development community to take some shortcuts. But I would have been lost in customizing the WP stuff if I hadn't already built my own system.

Now I'm thinking about redoing the whole thing with another package like MODx or Drupal, but the takeaway is that it's a lot more important to learn the process and the concepts than it is to learn any one system. Even if you're learning constructs in an archaic medium like COBOL and DB2.

8/23/2009 9:50:52 PM

Quote :

"i tell you what though. during my recent job hunt, there were many fewer open php positions, and they almost always paid less than say a .net or java or dba position."

yeah, and that's always been the case as far as I can remember. But then again he did say he's just learning, so starting off with them ain't so bad.


I started off with ASP.NET in 2002 and have now forgotten it all due to lack of use

[Edited on August 24, 2009 at 12:47 AM. Reason : but I'm also not a developer by trade, so meh]

8/24/2009 12:45:33 AM

Quote :

"PHP is the easiest language to learn programming concepts, imo."

yep!

well, easiest to program and learn programming in at any rate

learning concepts like variable types and such, not so much, since it basically does it all for you

[Edited on August 24, 2009 at 8:40 AM. Reason : behold the power of the dollar sign]

8/24/2009 8:38:24 AM

Quote :

"Know PHP (or ASP or whatever) and SQL backwards and forwards and you'll be able to easily adapt to most environments."

agreed. for SQL, a good place to start is a book + http://sqlzoo.net

and as far as CMSs go, I don't know if Sharepoint counts as one, but experience administering that can help you land some jobs too.

8/24/2009 9:27:33 AM

yeah i saw a fair amount of sharepoint jobs

but i wouldn't wish working primarily with sharepoint upon even my worst enemies

8/24/2009 9:44:13 AM

Quote :

"but i wouldn't wish working primarily with sharepoint upon even my worst enemies"

8/24/2009 9:45:57 AM

why not? it's kinda nice to be able to set up a site for someone and let them go wild, instead of having them pester us all the time for development needs...not that it works for everything, but it works for a lot.

i haven't dont that much with it personally so im curious whats so bad about administering it

8/24/2009 4:29:50 PM

Sharepoint is a fucking nightmare. The front-end and some of the back-end is fine, but once you delve into the code, you'd be better off slitting your wrists sooner rather than later.



and it's not really a CMS per-se, in the conventional sense


Sharepoint is an enterprise-level collaborative workspace, used as either an intra or extranet

[Edited on August 24, 2009 at 7:46 PM. Reason : but there are a SHIT TON of jobs available for it, not that you'd want to work them]

8/24/2009 7:46:19 PM

After watching a video series on Drupal, I think I'm going to go with Joomla. The video series turned me off when I got to a chapter on membership management and that aMember (and the aMember Drupal plug-in) would be a good thing to buy. However, I don't have $200 to just drop on software, since I'm still not sure what type of site I want (or what the general public wants) and Joomla has been indicated to be stupid powerful and I've dabbled in it before.

Anyway, thanks for your help everyone!

8/28/2009 8:01:19 AM

Quote :

"but there are a SHIT TON of jobs available for it, not that you'd want to work them"

That's why there's so many opportunities out there. FWIW SharePoint isn't actually that difficult to develop for. You just can't hack and slash your way through C# the same way you can with PHP. Having to understand things like MVC architecture, assemblies and OO development rules out 95% of the PHP/CMS community.

I know it sure as hell does for me. I've been trying to work with this MVC sample app for like two weeks, and it's still like reading greek, and I used to KNOW this shit.

That said, visual styling on SharePoint 3.0 is really the nightmare. SharePoint 2010 is an amazing leap forward for the product. Full ribbon integration on the web, REAL themes and styling, and waaay more flexible.

---------

I think learning Drupal is a really good place to start. The codebase is pretty clean, and was very well designed architecturally (at least 4-5 years ago). Jadn's right, it's not the easiest to theme, but it's BY FAR the most powerfull FLOSS CMS out there. Once you learn the architecture, it can do anything pretty easily.

If you are concerned about making sites efficiently (contract jobs, 1 man projects) Wordpress or Moveable Type are the ones to go with. I haven't used MODx though, and I trust jadn, so add that to the short list.

Quote :

"It's impossible to learn everything well unless you are the person Noen thinks he is."

I only learn worthwhile things well

8/28/2009 8:55:54 AM