This quick O’Reilly blog post notes a very important point: people are looking for cookie-cutter solutions to the CMS problem. Adrian Holovaty wants to set them straight; you need a CMS for your data, and that can’t be provided by an off-the-shelf CMS.
People often ask me, for example, if they can use the code for my personal CMS. They’re missing the point. The personal CMS I’ve written is very much tailored to me — it wouldn’t be very useful to you. You need one tailored to you, just like I need one tailored to me. The same holds true for professional-level CMSes. Our Ellington CMS works well as a news publishing platform because it’s uniquely tailored to what news organizations do and the kind of data they deal with. It wouldn’t be very efficient, say, for powering a personal website. Cookie-cutter solutions just don’t work very well in most cases.
Luckily, Django makes it very easy for you to “roll your own”. :)
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/journalism_thro.html
001 // Link // 03.14.2007 // 8:29 AM
It’s funny you mention this. I had a job interview yesterday and I was asked if I was familiar with a handful of out-of-the-box content management systems. They were looking for a new system to replace their current one. The first thing I said was they’d be better off trying to roll their own then go with a system that tries to be all things for all people.
Their current CMS, the name of which I’ll keep secret, is and has been a total disaster for them precisely because it’s so robust. It’s like they’re trying to swat flies with sledgehammers.