Slashdot Mirror

This should be fun.

I've been doing Web sites since the 1990s. I've written my own full-featured CMS systems in Perl (I told you I've been doing this a while) and in PHP, have completely modified open-source CMSes, and have used a number of CMS systems; including Java systems and even ASP .NET systems. I've written many, many plugins, modules and themes.

However, just because I actually have a couple of decades of direct, relevant experience in exactly this, doesn't mean that my opinion will hold any weight at all. This is SlashDot, where poo-flinging monkeys rule the roost. I'll be soundly attacked because I don't drink the right brand of Kool-Aid as some kid out of Java School.

My opinion: You want commercial-grade, the .ASP systems are generally robust as hell, but you need to pay for a good one. Free: You need to go to a PHP-based system. Drupal is definitely the best; but has a Matterhorn learning curve. WordPress is the easiest to set up and actually, despite all the screeching, has very good quality and support up the yin-yang.

There's a couple of off-the-beaten-path CMSes, like TextPattern and EZ. They are actually fairly good, but lack the enormous code base and community support from the "Big 3."

I tend to avoid Joomla. It's easy to set up, has a lot of support, and is about ten thousand times more complex than it needs to be.

I think we're likely to see some good Node.js systems coming out soon. RoR never really made it out the gate, and if you see Perl, like Movable Type (Which is actually a fairly robust and mature system), start running.

FLING POO HERE -->

Thanks for the tip. I have heard very good things about TextPattern and EZ Publish. However, the issue is that the folks who use my code are primarily "big 3" users; with a distressing number of Joomla users.

It has to do with "market penetration" and "community support," as much as good code, ease of extensibility, etc.

If you can't wait for a Fork, there's a nice package called Textpattern that I used to use. It's kinda like WordPress. I liked it. Give it a spin and see if it works for you. :D (End shameless plug for favorite php app).

Then, my friend, you want http://textpattern.com/.

If WP says that "Code is poetry" and TXP that "Code is pottery"... for Drupal what is Code like? ;)

I've done the CMS gamut and Textpattern takes the cake.

Relatively simple, totally customizable, great plugin system and a wonderful development community. All of the web essentials out of the box and nothing more.

It passes every litmus test a poster mentioned earlier, including the easy-to-install. :) I'll be the 1st to admit there's room for improvement, but it's a partially a function of the core developers' antibloat that I so appreciate.

Realistically, if you design an application from the start with even just a little bit of, well. . . design, and consideration for portability and future growth, database independance is not very difficult.

Unfortunately, it's been my experience that most people don't really think beyond the next few hours when they're coding, which means that making things better later on is a huge chore.

Reiterating a comment I made above, and expanding a little:

Sometimes there is a good design reason for not supporting multiple backends; for example, Textpattern, my personal favorite for blogging/lightweight CMS solutions, has long been MySQL-only, not because of laziness or ignorance, but because Postgres doesn't have fulltext indexing by default (requires either of two contrib modules which don't get built in a standard Postgres install), and Textpattern uses fulltext indexing. There's a development branch of Textpattern which has experimental Postgres support (even though the trunk is MySQL-only, Textpattern does use abstraction in its database interface) which may or may not make that available for the future Textpattern 4.1, but I haven't had a chance to play with it, so I don't know how they're working around that problem.

And while I tend to be fairly DB-agnostic, I can understand that deliberate targeting of MySQL is a good way to keep an application like Wordpress manageable; since MySQL is by far the most common DB available for its target market (shared hosting customers), this pleases the most people while keeping the need to worry about inconsistencies between DBs to a minimum.

WordPress (PHP) is an amazing piece of software. I used to use Movable Type, and their respective pros and cons tend to cancel each other out, so it's really a matter of taste and priorities. There are tons of other solutions - TextPattern (PHP) and Typo (Ruby on Rails) are also popular and widely supported, and if neither will do, check your favorite search engine's index.

And yes, the word "blog" is an amazing eyesore, and it's just a contraction for the hell of it. "Weblog" or even the accepted ancestral "log" means so much more that it's hard to believe why people would use the four letter alternative other than to feel special.

Textpattern may be what you are looking for. Although it is used for blogs, it is very easy to setup as a general purpose CMS. And it seems to have good unicode support for your multilingual needs.

If you want more of a blog-styled CMS while retaining the ability to do static content and such, I would strongly reccommend Textpattern.

It's VERY lightweight, and elegant in its design, and doesn't hit the database anywhere nearly as hard as Mambo theoretically does.

there's also a bunch of up and coming ruby-based weblogs/cms-es, most of which do Ajax/Web2.0/Whatever-you-want-to-call-it

I haven't used any of them, but I hear great things about the apps being built on top of ruby-on-rails.

I currently run a MovableType blog, a WordPress blog (two, actually: 1.2 and 1.5), and a TextPattern site. I've evalutated all of the options and TextPattern is the cleanest, best designed lightweight CMS of the bunch.

http://www.textpattern.com/

Have you looked at Textpattern? It's simple, fast, and easy-to-use, once you get the hang of it. I will probably be moving to it once version 1.0 comes out, which should be any day now...

Best of all, unlike another open source ethically challenged weblog system, they make their money honestly, by running a hosting service called TextDrive.

For me, the most useful thing to take away from this book is not necessarily the blah about web standards coding techniques (there are better resources for that), but the techniques for planning a website, such as listing out in plain language what you want the website to do.

I provide advice to small businesses about websites, and its rare to find one that has even has a basic requirements list, never mind a structured, budgeted website development plan that is regularly reviewed and updated by management.

Most small businesses regard their websites as either a tacked on extra, or as something for the in-house geek to deal with.

Most of them don't need a website. They'd be better off with listings in business directories such as Kellysearch and Yell.com.

Those that have a real need for a website should be using a cheap, web-based content management system that spits out standards compliant code, not training in Dreamweaver, Frontpage (gah!), Contribute, et al.

Textpattern hacked to include a WYSIWYG editor would fit the bill nicely. Implement that with 12 months support for £1000 and you've got clients.

Why the links to "every other blog"? Those are not blog sites, just links to blogging software. More appropriate links would have been to sites like these.

Seems Dean has clarified its license.
http://textpattern.com/dev/article/10/textpattern- is-open-source

I have been using Textpattern for a while now and I can't be happier. It does everything well, and is free. It has a nice administrator interface, and everything.

Hey, I sound like a commercial.

It's worth mentioning that Textpattern, currently BSD'ish, will be going to a commercial license at some point.
See this form post for details:
http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=505

Also missed out on textpattern. It's supposidly BSD-licensed, and fairly similar to MT.

Yes, there are options, but not having to rely upon an outside service for updating the content in your blog or gallery is what MovableType provides.

I agree that MovableType (and sixapart) should have the right to charge for their program. But going from free to crippled 70-600 dollar licenses is a bit of a shock to those of us who didn't see this coming.

Blogger or livejournal, etc are of course for people who don't want to get their hands dirty with setup and maintenance. It's a great service. But what happens if the service goes belly-up? Think mp3.com and the artists. While there's a great deal of minless drivel on many blogs, still others provide witty, insightful, funny, local, or even newsworthy content.

It's a shame that MovableType has deliberately alienated their community support and likely will end their own dominance over the weblog content management software.

For people starting out on weblogging, I agree that multiply, blogger, livejournal, or some such service is definitely worth a look.

For those of you already using MT and looking for alternatives, the ones that have been commonly mentioned in the past day may be worth checking out. For example, TextPattern, Drupal or Wordpress.

Don't like the free alternatives? MT's success came from community support. Do the same thing for these. Test them, report bugs, develop them, use them. Show MT that they're not the only game in town, just one of the most expensive.

I'm not a cheapskate. I believe in paying for good software.

But I won't pay for Movable Type. Here's why.

On SixApart's behalf, they made several big mistakes in launching their pricing structure. Since they announced MT3 and that they were going to charge for it, they also promised a free non-crippled version of MT3. Blogging is generally a communual experience. I blog casually, and I have a couple of friends who write posts on my blog from time to time, and a wife who keeps her own blog. The free version of MT3 is crippled, because it limits the users and number of blogs. Limiting user base is bad thing to do when blogging is still relatively new.

Secondly, the pricing structure is much higher than what people anticipated. Those in the beta test for MT3 had absolutely no idea that it was going to cost this much, and many who did participate have publically stated they wouldn't have if they did know. Why the hostility?

Two reasons. It's the community that made MT what it is now. There's not really that much new functionality in MT3 that makes it worth paying $100 for (the $70 is a temporary discount remember?). Many of the features that made MT2x worth using were coded by non-SixApart people. Users - with no profit motive whatsoever - coded hundreds of MT plugins that exceeded the coding ability of SixApart. Others wrote far more detailed tutorials and instructions than SixApart provided for their own software. So, SixApart is compensating them by running a contest for the best plugin? That's insulting, honestly.

Secondly, there are blogging apps that do as good a job as MT3, if not better. And, they're free. Others have similar pricing structures as MT3 but do more. So, why MT3? And let's get this straight: using something for free isn't necessarily being a cheapass. If maintaining my blogs as they are will cost me upwards $150, why shouldn't I migrate to a free solution? Imagine if Windows had the same stability and security as Linux, but cost the same as it does now for a company to run. Why wouldn't a company move to Linux? Are companies being the durgatory form of cheapskates by moving to a lower priced product? No. It's common market sense, and because of its love for linux and open source, slashdot should be aware of this better than anyone. Some MT users probably are cheapass, and will warez the MT software if they can or do whatever they can to avoid paying.

But a larger portion are paying for accounts on livejournal and blogger. They are paying for internet access and webhosting. They're not cheapskates. Instead, like me, they just don't want to pay $150-200 for what is basically a hobby, and a hobby that can continue for free if we switch software. Why should we support a company that doesn't announce its pricing structure beforehand, and keeps it as close to their chest as possible? Why did SixApart do that? Why didn't they announce it before time? Because they knew people would be pissed. This reaction is no surprise to anyone.

I just switched from Movable Type to Text Pattern and I couldn't be happier. It's more CMS like AND easier to use (granted MT was easy to use but Txp feels much smoother). It makes a good separation of content and display and has a few goodies that make this feel natural. It's got a few minor bugs that'll be fixed before release; but it's worked great for my blog.

Oh, and it imports movable type files. Seriously, with the wide variety of free, quality, blogging software out there, Six Apart has their work cut out for them.

Textpattern, by Dean Allen, is the One True Right and Only Blogware. You can even get in on the development process, since it's in gamma (a damned functional gamma) right now.