What have I got myself into?
My freelance work has slowed down a bit as of late, I just finished up a project and I wanted to find something to occupy some time until the next job rolls in. After writing about my predictions for 2005 in the web design/development world, and reading other’s posts about the same subject, web apps and dynamic websites are going to be the way that clients will be heading in 2005. So, in this vain I’ve begun work on a CMS that I can customize on a per client basis.
I think this will definitely be a great selling point for my services (when I get it completed), as well as making designing sites a lot easier. Now, for the hard part: getting to the point where I can begin actually using the system…
To some, this may not seem to be a huge task, but for me, who finds coding to be quite painful at times, this is a pretty large project. I’m trying to follow the software engineering processes that I learned while in university to make the whole ordeal as painless as possible.
All things considered, I think this is definitely going to be a very worthwhile project, and I’m looking forward to working on it and watching it develop. Do any of you that have developed your own blogging/CMS’s in the past have any tips, pitfalls, or suggestions for me that might aid me in my progress?
Comments
There are 6 comments on this post.
- pawel
- Website
- January 26, 2005 at 09:27 PM
There is a lot of Open Source CMSs out there that might give you a head start. Honestly, as though Im a designer not a programmer, I would invest at least $100/license for a proven, secure and tested CMS rather then mock around in code I barely know.Comment Permalink
- Jeff
- Website
- January 26, 2005 at 09:52 PM
Even though I'm a designer, I have a very strong programming background. I studied software programming and engineering for 4 years before I hit the design track. I tend to pick up new programming languages fairly fast, so projects such as this are not out of the question for me. I think that it will be a great benefit to me in the future and if I happening to make an extra few bucks on every client for the CMS so much the better.Comment Permalink
- Chris Vincent
- Website
- January 26, 2005 at 10:04 PM
I used to run Passive Digressive on a custom hack of code in PHP that I called Überblog. It was alright, but in the end I switched to WordPress simply because I was unmotivated with maintaining it, and it certainly wouldn't have been good to use with clients (I have a PHP library for those purposes, rather than a full-fledged CMS to be customized). My advice? Figure out how you're going to use the software before you write it. Specifically, figure out what you want templates and programs using your CMS to look like before you write the CMS, so that you have an idea of how to interface it. That's probably kind of obvious (OOP basics), but it's pretty vital if you don't want to end up rewriting it repeatedly out of dissatisfaction (trust me ;)). Finally, I would take a look at Ruby on Rails. It's not widely supported on hosting services yet, and it might not be ideal for every project (including your CMS), but many of the principles involved can be taken away and applied elsewhere. Also, you might just end up wanting to do everything with it. I tried it, and it's just as easy as they make it look. :) Oh, and for some perspective, it *is* good enough for bigger projects. Besides Basecamp, Derek of CD Baby is rewriting his site in RoR. Good luck and have fun with the CMS. All of this talk makes me want to get Überblog going again. :PComment Permalink
- Michele
- Website
- January 27, 2005 at 09:21 AM
As Chris said, maybe it'd be enough to have a PHP library. But, really, it depends on what you want to offer. At the moment I have a PHP library that I use for my works, but would love to code a CMS (maybe just for fun ;) ). A set of PHP functions is the most flexible solution, because you can mold it exactly how you need it for each project. But a CMS is quickier to handle, and maybe easier on the customer-side.Comment Permalink
- Jeff
- Website
- January 30, 2005 at 11:13 AM
Thanks for the suggestions guys. Ruby on Rails has definitely tweaked my interest. The only problem with that may be hosting, as a lot of hosts don't provide support for RoR just yet, but I'm sure that will come before long. I'd be interested to hear what types of functions, etc. you guys have in your PHP libraries, as that is another thing that I'd like to build up and have on hand for projects.Comment Permalink
- Michele
- Website
- January 30, 2005 at 03:22 PM
I have a class to handle users sign-up and login, a small blog/news script, a stats engine and not much else I guess...Comment Permalink