[LRUG] Building a CMS from scratch...

[Tom Armitage]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Simon Tokumine
<Simon.Tokumine at unep-wcmc.org> wrote:
> Building a good CMS as feature rich as the software you mention is
> deceptively difficult. It's may also be a bit, well, boring.   The dullness
> of the logic and the sense that 100's of other people have trodden the same
> ground before may lead you to the (possibly incorrect) conclusion that your
> chosen implementation language is rubbish.

This. What seems like a simple task quickly becomes fiddly, as you
start dealing with things like pingback, comment-spam handling,
templating, user permissions (oh, god, permission schemas). Making an
app that stores and displays content is the tip of the iceberg; making
the other 90% is where the work in most CMSes goes, and it's really
quite boring as Simon says; unfortunately, if you get bored during
that part, that's the part people will notice.

Most people who have used a CMS - and there are a lot of people who've
used Wordpress out there - already have expectations of functionality;
unfortunately, it's all the boring/difficult stuff. You might find
that what seemed like a simple task is quickly turning into an onerous
one, but you're committed to the path.

If you want a "first" project, consider something smaller; tight,
well-defined, few other users.