Content Management that enables developers

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Content Management has always been an area of web development designed to make updating a website simple and easy for the end-user. Over time, I believe, the concept of content management systems (CMSes) has developed, in certain aspects, in a point-and-click direction. By point-and-click, I mean where developers sign into a console and click through a series of steps with, effectively, a “create module” button at the end. This then pumps out a module for the client to update when the website is live.

Does this make for a good CMS?

Yes and no, in my opinion. On the one hand, it affords a wider audience the opportunity to create a customised CMS that allows for more streamlined updating of content. On the other hand, however, would this cause an effective “end” to programming on the web?

I believe a good CMS is one that achieves balance. The ability for users to be able to create custom content types with ease (possibly point-and-click) as well as all the essential core elements (content hierarchy, user management and authentication, etc) being taken care of. In addition to this, the ability to allow developers to hook in their own custom-written code, without having to code the core elements every time they need a new CMS for a project.

I believe the above approach is a step towards truly enabling developers. By “enabling”, I mean allowing developers to focus on the bits of code that make their projects awesome, to learn and excel at what they do.

That’s my thought for the day. What do you guys think? 🙂

Comments

3 responses to “Content Management that enables developers”

  1. Wogan Avatar
    Wogan

    Less is more.

    Among other things in my 20gb collection of digital garbage, I came across a PHP templating engine called “AwesomeTemplatingEngine”. So, curious, I unzipped it.

    There was no engine. The entire idea behind it was that, with array() and mysql_fetch_assoc() and while(), you had a templating engine built right into PHP, without the need to go creating a new one.

    In my opinion, the same holds true for CMSes. I develop things for WordPress, and as much as WordPress is a pleasure to use, it’s a nightmare to develop for. Archaic and poorly-documented functions, unreadable source code, lethargic loading times – all of these are offputting (made only worse every time they release an update and everyone has to reupgrade their plugins and themes).

    So as far as CMSes go, I really think that people should try to get away with as little as possible. You can learn all the PHP you’ll need inside of a day. You can build a rock-solid customised-for-the-situation CMS inside of a week, without all the bells and whistles, that anyone can open and read and edit.

    As for content management and user authentication? Simplest system I’ve developed yet reads pages from flatfiles, uploaded via FTP, with a off-the-shelf TinyMCE editor in a cookie-secured backend. And the client was happy with it.

    Reply
    1. Matty Avatar
      Matty

      Hey Wogan.

      Thanks for your comment. 🙂

      I agree. Less definitely is more, when it comes to content management. Ultimately, if the client is able to update their website’s content (in a direct manner, without workarounds or little tricks), and enjoy the process, the system works, in my opinion.

      I reckon that, nowadays, users are also more expectant. They expect the CMS to function similarly to popular web applications (because that’s what they’re used to). This possibly contributes to bloated systems… the “trying to please all the time” factor, instead of making it work, in a simple fashion, for it’s specified task.

      Reply
  2. Business Catalyst Avatar
    Business Catalyst

    For me Joomla has come a long way and established itself as a popular content management system. Whatever your site’s primary function is going to be, you need to define it and then find a CMS that does that particular thing really, really well.

    Reply

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