On the use of handwritten Content Management Systems

Tags: cms, coding, publishing, software

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When I told Andru that I was starting a blog and writing the CMS for it, he was incredulous. He wondered why I didn't use any of the abundantly numerous CMSes out there already, with all the features already implemented. There are a few reasons I decided to use my own code for a CMS.

First and foremost, it's almost a matter of pride. Sure, I could download some generic CMS, upload it to my server, and install it, and be up and running inside of 3 minutes. Sure, I'd have a blog, but with 3 minutes of effort, would I be proud of it?

Of course, many of you will say that it's not what hosts the blog, but the content inside the blog that matters. I feel this way too - the choice of a CMS has little bearing on what content I can post.

Secondly, I designed the cre.ations.net posting interface to be as slick and simple as possible, streamlining the posting process to a minimum of steps. I use the interface when publishing my creations all the time, and I am very comfortable with it.

Thirdly, I like the cre.ations.net image zooming feature. Sure, I'm a bit partial because I wrote it myself, but I feel like the little conveniences can really make or break a site. I could have ported the zoomer to some other CMS but what's the point? It's already right here.

Lastly, having written the entirety of cre.ations.net, I know the code like the back of my hand. If something malfunctions, or I think up a new feature, I'm only moments away from realizing it - no complicated and undocumented plugin architecture to learn, and no useless object-oriented hoops to jump through.

I can see how many enjoy the convenience of prewritten CMSes and I had a brief relationship with Joomla a while back. It was very easy to use (for myself as well as comment spammers) and I think it's a great package. But it just doesn't have that cozy feeling that you get from using your own handwritten code.

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