I’m happy to hear I was able to help.

I too have been in your situation and unfortunately, for many of us, it takes a broken nose (or two) before you learn!!

… I got the crooked nose to show for it too!

Stefan

I have been developing websites for many years oblivious to my need to learn anything new. I wrote clean XHTML 1.0, CSS 2, and Javascript code. My websites were beautiful and highly functional. I thought to myself that I was doing well enough, until I was asked to build a forum with calanders and various other accoutrements, and they wanted it in one day.

“What”, I thought. I cannot do that. I understand what that would take and even how to go about it, but the deadline was not possible for just me to accomplish. It was just physically impossible. I should mention here that at the time I had never even heard of CMS. Needless to say I was “let go”. As I continued working on building said website to satisfy myself that if I was ever faced with the same situation I would already have all of the elements within my possession, I began learning PHP (from this website) and googled every known term I could think of to search for and learn.

Fortunately, an old friend wrote to me and happened to mention Joomla, so I looked it up and not really understanding what CMS was all about I installed it on my localhost. Sceptically I began combing through it and found, to my amazement that it was what I was trying to do. I have learned to do so much by seeing how it has been done.

Stefan, I must agree with you. I got my nose broken and now my hands are up. Learning from experience is painful, and learning to listen to good advice is the path of wisdom. Stefan, Thank you.

It is by far the better choice to use an existing CMS and modify. By far!

Stefan

Most clients are paying to get their own things made, not for developers to take free/open-source applications, change them (which, let’s face it, you don’t need to know much to do), and sell them for high prices. To anyone who does this practise at work, I bet most of the time you will not make it clear to your clients that you’re even doing this. I totally understand re-using code, it is a necessity, but that is more about re-using your own code, not someone else’s.

It’s worth creating a CMS structure yourself, and working with that code on each client project. Yes it may take a while if it’s going to be a particularly big system, but suck it up, that’s the work life for you. You should know your own code. You’ll have integrity, you’ll be selling YOUR work and not ripping off clients. This is something you can take pride in, and the fact it’ll all be your own work is a great way to sell yourself.

To those that are going to go down the road that this article is supporting, be very careful around the laws of selling free and open-source applications (even if very heavily modified, usually the least you need is some kind of license/agreement where you will need to pay the original creator(s). And make sure your services are advertised with the upmost honesty. “It’s only illegal if you’re caught” is so not true. I wish all the best to you aspiring web designers/developers out there!

Depends on the CMS and how well (modular) it is built. A good OOP based CMS should allow you to hook into it and add new functionality.

That said, I would still hold that in most circumstances, it would be better to base your work on a mature open source CMS than to start from scratch.

… Just think about all the things they’ve already have in place!

Stefan

Then to me it seems easier to do it the ‘old’ way. Although i’d love to be proven wrong.

When I mentioned directory scripts, I am talking about directories like our web designers directory:

http://www.killersites.com/directory/

You said:

“I have a boss who couldn’t be convinced that outsourcing $50K for another MySpace clone was a terrible idea.”

Yea. Been there, done that!

I would venture a guess, that the people who think building a CMS from scratch is a good idea, are probably those who haven’t much experience in the real world.

Like my old boxing coach used to say: “You don’t really understand why you should put your hands up … until you get your nose broken a couple of times.”

… Fortunately for me, rhinoplasty is reasonably cheap these days!

Stefan