5 ms·

I've been thinking about what should replace Wordpress in the CMS space (as opposed to blogging). There are a lot of aspects of Wordpress that make it great, an

by rquantz 13y ago

I've been thinking about what should replace Wordpress in the CMS space (as opposed to blogging). There are a lot of aspects of Wordpress that make it great, and a lot of things that make it absolutely terrible. I think part of its problem is that it seems intended to be a platform that non-developers can maintain themselves, while presenting features that really require a developer. As a result, it is not a suitable environment either for non-coders or coders. I'd love to see a platform that is easily deployed on shared hosting (written in php, using mysql) but that lends itself better to version control and switching environments. It should keep configuration in plain text instead of in the database, and it should allow easy definition of node types in addition to the standards (post, page, comment, etc.). These should also be defined in plain text instead of in the database (I'm looking at you, Drupal). Meanwhile, theming should be just as easy as with Wordpress. Anyway, it's good to see others trying to enter the blogging platform space and compete with Wordpress, but I really want to see a truly good CMS come along.

krisroadruck 13y ago
There have been a ton of CMS's written I think the problem is just adoption. Without mass adoption you don't get much in the way of ready extensibility. Thats one area wordpress really has the space on lockdown.
- rquantz 13y ago
  Are there any other CMSs that are actually better than WP but that haven't been adopted? I've seen some that are intriguing, but ultimately most seem to have the same problems, such as stored configuration in the DB.
  - akamaka 13y ago
    I've been using ProcessWire, and it's been fantastic to work with. However, it stores user-defined template schemas in a MySQL database. Does that pose a big problem for you? I'm really curious to know what kind of troubles you've run into with configuration in the DB.
    - rquantz 13y ago
      It poses a problem for deployment, collaboration, version control, etc. For instance, a new data type (not a problem in WP, but you could substitute meta fields or something) will frequently require some new code as well -- a widget, template, or whatever. Once I've built this in my dev environment, tested in the staging environment, and deployed live I will have had to set up the new data type in three different places, or written a script that does it, but most CMSs don't provide those tools, so you would be stuck hacking around with internal functions that might or might not be stable. Meanwhile, any other developers will then have to replicate the same changes in their dev environment. Version control exists to solve these problems, but when this stuff is stored in the database it is a lot harder to consistently reicate changes. I'm sure people come up with solutions that don't involve replicating configuration in the GUI, but my point is it should be baked into the CMS.
krapp 13y ago
I think Laravel 4 would be a good start for something like that, with Twig as the templating engine. Use as many existing, open source solutions as possible.
HNLogInShit 13y ago
What about Movable Type?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
methodin 13y ago
Without too much effort you can integrate composer, symfony and twig into wordpress to make it more developer friendly. Hell I have all my wordpress installations maintained through a composer script with phing integration so I can maintain my plugins, themes etc... on top of a non-modified wp instance which makes it easy to update. It's nice for those times where you don't want to reinvent the wheel just get some content up.
malandrew 13y ago
Why PHP and MySQL? JavaScript, since it is the only thing that runs in the browser, is a much better choice since the barrier to building and maintaining a site isn't too far from the reach of a novice because only one Turing complete language is required. With respect to MySQL. Given what WordPress does today and all the other options out there, is WordPress still the best tool for the job? Why not Postgres or MariaDB? Or how about NoSQL options? Is there an option which would permit development to be just as easy, but that avoids the security complexity of a database exposed to code injections because it execute arbitrary code snippets?
- rquantz 13y ago
  Because almost all web hosts have php and mysql already installed. They would not necessarily be my first choice for any application, but for a widely disseminated CMS, I still think those are the best choices. I'm open to being shown I'm wrong, though.
  - gnaritas 13y ago
    There's a NoSql db on every host as well, the filesystem, and it works great for documented oriented sites like blogs.
    - malandrew 13y ago
      Yeah, but doesn't the default number of open file descriptors limit how scalable such a solution is as a default to rely on?
      - skyebook 13y ago
        Only if your number of pages exceeds the limit (assuming that you're serializing access to the files) ;)
      - gnaritas 13y ago
        I highly doubt that's an issue you'll ever run into on a blog.
ivan_ah 13y ago
Check out dokuwiki. It's PHP, but it's good. data/pages/folder/file.txt --> site.com/folder/file publishing means to sync your localhost data/pages with the one on your web server
geerlingguy 13y ago
Sounds a little bit like Drupal 8... Configuration in yaml, Symfony components at the core, removal of a lot of the same NIH-related cruft that's weighing down most other mature players in the CMS/CMF field.

by rquantz 13y ago

krisroadruck 13y ago

There have been a ton of CMS's written I think the problem is just adoption. Without mass adoption you don't get much in the way of ready extensibility. Thats one area wordpress really has the space on lockdown.

rquantz 13y ago
Are there any other CMSs that are actually better than WP but that haven't been adopted? I've seen some that are intriguing, but ultimately most seem to have the same problems, such as stored configuration in the DB.
- akamaka 13y ago
  I've been using ProcessWire, and it's been fantastic to work with. However, it stores user-defined template schemas in a MySQL database. Does that pose a big problem for you? I'm really curious to know what kind of troubles you've run into with configuration in the DB.
  - rquantz 13y ago
    It poses a problem for deployment, collaboration, version control, etc. For instance, a new data type (not a problem in WP, but you could substitute meta fields or something) will frequently require some new code as well -- a widget, template, or whatever. Once I've built this in my dev environment, tested in the staging environment, and deployed live I will have had to set up the new data type in three different places, or written a script that does it, but most CMSs don't provide those tools, so you would be stuck hacking around with internal functions that might or might not be stable. Meanwhile, any other developers will then have to replicate the same changes in their dev environment. Version control exists to solve these problems, but when this stuff is stored in the database it is a lot harder to consistently reicate changes. I'm sure people come up with solutions that don't involve replicating configuration in the GUI, but my point is it should be baked into the CMS.

krapp 13y ago

I think Laravel 4 would be a good start for something like that, with Twig as the templating engine. Use as many existing, open source solutions as possible.

HNLogInShit 13y ago

What about Movable Type?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

methodin 13y ago

Without too much effort you can integrate composer, symfony and twig into wordpress to make it more developer friendly. Hell I have all my wordpress installations maintained through a composer script with phing integration so I can maintain my plugins, themes etc... on top of a non-modified wp instance which makes it easy to update. It's nice for those times where you don't want to reinvent the wheel just get some content up.

malandrew 13y ago

Why PHP and MySQL? JavaScript, since it is the only thing that runs in the browser, is a much better choice since the barrier to building and maintaining a site isn't too far from the reach of a novice because only one Turing complete language is required. With respect to MySQL. Given what WordPress does today and all the other options out there, is WordPress still the best tool for the job? Why not Postgres or MariaDB? Or how about NoSQL options? Is there an option which would permit development to be just as easy, but that avoids the security complexity of a database exposed to code injections because it execute arbitrary code snippets?

rquantz 13y ago
Because almost all web hosts have php and mysql already installed. They would not necessarily be my first choice for any application, but for a widely disseminated CMS, I still think those are the best choices. I'm open to being shown I'm wrong, though.
- gnaritas 13y ago
  There's a NoSql db on every host as well, the filesystem, and it works great for documented oriented sites like blogs.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Yeah, but doesn't the default number of open file descriptors limit how scalable such a solution is as a default to rely on?
    - skyebook 13y ago
      Only if your number of pages exceeds the limit (assuming that you're serializing access to the files) ;)
    - gnaritas 13y ago
      I highly doubt that's an issue you'll ever run into on a blog.

ivan_ah 13y ago

Check out dokuwiki. It's PHP, but it's good. data/pages/folder/file.txt --> site.com/folder/file publishing means to sync your localhost data/pages with the one on your web server

geerlingguy 13y ago

Sounds a little bit like Drupal 8... Configuration in yaml, Symfony components at the core, removal of a lot of the same NIH-related cruft that's weighing down most other mature players in the CMS/CMF field.