I was just minutes from wasting five months revising my own poorly assembled CMS to turn it into something reasonably attractive when I stumbled upon an old bookmark for a web framework called Django.
I have now made it my goal to clear from my mind every painful memory of that dog's breakfast that is PHP, replacing them with Python.
Conveniently, I have been dabbling in Python lately after getting a book on it at the library. It is a really clean, elegant and well supported language.
Django has the exact same feature set as the CMS I had designed, except for one thing: I does it right, with years of experience. (That, and it is written in Python). It isn't really a CMS, but rather a development framework to really quickly assemble a CMS. However, it is really easy to use and it does a lot of work for you (and nothing you don't want it to do), so in a sense it is easier than most CMSs out there.
I like Django because it does not have a fugly, bloated and complicated administration system. It respects the intelligence of the person installing the system, realizing that there is a difference between the user and the developer; that the developer knows how to and probably wants to build a web site, and that all the end user wants to do is to populate that site with content as easily as possible.
When a CMS gives the end user access to 'how the site works', the whole purpose is lost. The user can easily make the site an ugly mess, so it may as well be straight static HTML pages with the instructions "Edit these in Word".
Django, unlike most other systems that wrongfully call themselves "content management systems" actually is built specifically to aid in managing content. It does not build for you a whole web site with "add ons", it does not manage templates, it does not give you a forum, a guest book, or daily polls. Instead, it helps you build a web site that works.
This kind of tidy approach to web development is very refreshing.
...
Hey, come to think of it, I think I got that link from Mark's worklog. I guess this proves that it's good :P
Thanks, Mark!
I have now made it my goal to clear from my mind every painful memory of that dog's breakfast that is PHP, replacing them with Python.
Conveniently, I have been dabbling in Python lately after getting a book on it at the library. It is a really clean, elegant and well supported language.
Django has the exact same feature set as the CMS I had designed, except for one thing: I does it right, with years of experience. (That, and it is written in Python). It isn't really a CMS, but rather a development framework to really quickly assemble a CMS. However, it is really easy to use and it does a lot of work for you (and nothing you don't want it to do), so in a sense it is easier than most CMSs out there.
I like Django because it does not have a fugly, bloated and complicated administration system. It respects the intelligence of the person installing the system, realizing that there is a difference between the user and the developer; that the developer knows how to and probably wants to build a web site, and that all the end user wants to do is to populate that site with content as easily as possible.
When a CMS gives the end user access to 'how the site works', the whole purpose is lost. The user can easily make the site an ugly mess, so it may as well be straight static HTML pages with the instructions "Edit these in Word".
Django, unlike most other systems that wrongfully call themselves "content management systems" actually is built specifically to aid in managing content. It does not build for you a whole web site with "add ons", it does not manage templates, it does not give you a forum, a guest book, or daily polls. Instead, it helps you build a web site that works.
This kind of tidy approach to web development is very refreshing.
...
Hey, come to think of it, I think I got that link from Mark's worklog. I guess this proves that it's good :P
Thanks, Mark!