5 ms·

The Ruby on Rails CMS Dilemma

10 points by nreece 17y ago

Flankk 17y ago
If you just need a toothpick you don't need to buy a swiss army knife. Though it could come in handy if you ever want to do more than pick your teeth.
sho 17y ago
This is a genuine problem, but it's not just for Ruby on Rails. Every framework in every language has this problem. It's just that the ease of developing the "custom app" portion of the site in RoR throws the wasteful yak-shaving wheel-reinvention of writing a CMS in sharper relief, IMO. Trying to find a generalised "CMS API" is a nice idea but honestly I wonder if it's even possible. Maybe it's just at too high a level to standardise. I can't even think of a good CMS, let alone some paradigm I'd want as the "standard" .. Got to agree with him on one point though - stay away from things like RadiantCMS, they're a trap. You think they will save you time, but they will not. These days if I had to write a small business site I'd just write some basic editing pages on the back end and who cares how it looks - the clients sure don't.
- look_lookatme 17y ago
  I've been doing freelance CMS-y sites for a couple of months now to pay the bills in between jobs (back to FT in July. Salary!) and I generally agree with your sentiments. I will say I wished I had a decent command of Python and Django as, in my limited experience with it, it seems perfect for building a tailored CMS-esque site quickly and not worrying too much about the admin component.
oomkiller 17y ago
It seems Django supports a simple CMS ability using its builtin "Admin" framework. However, I believe ActiveScaffold offers similar ability, but I've not used it because I haven't seen a need.
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
Re his scenario # 2, if someone is not married to Ruby, Drupal is the obvious way to go. The modular design means that adding new functionality is generally trivial (by adding or extending an existing module) so there's no need to hack the core. Why reinvent the wheel when you get a CMS with localization, ecommerce, security, user management, query building etc etc etc all for free?

10 points by nreece 17y ago

If you just need a toothpick you don't need to buy a swiss army knife. Though it could come in handy if you ever want to do more than pick your teeth.

sho 17y ago

This is a genuine problem, but it's not just for Ruby on Rails. Every framework in every language has this problem. It's just that the ease of developing the "custom app" portion of the site in RoR throws the wasteful yak-shaving wheel-reinvention of writing a CMS in sharper relief, IMO. Trying to find a generalised "CMS API" is a nice idea but honestly I wonder if it's even possible. Maybe it's just at too high a level to standardise. I can't even think of a good CMS, let alone some paradigm I'd want as the "standard" .. Got to agree with him on one point though - stay away from things like RadiantCMS, they're a trap. You think they will save you time, but they will not. These days if I had to write a small business site I'd just write some basic editing pages on the back end and who cares how it looks - the clients sure don't.

look_lookatme 17y ago
I've been doing freelance CMS-y sites for a couple of months now to pay the bills in between jobs (back to FT in July. Salary!) and I generally agree with your sentiments. I will say I wished I had a decent command of Python and Django as, in my limited experience with it, it seems perfect for building a tailored CMS-esque site quickly and not worrying too much about the admin component.

oomkiller 17y ago

It seems Django supports a simple CMS ability using its builtin "Admin" framework. However, I believe ActiveScaffold offers similar ability, but I've not used it because I haven't seen a need.

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago

Re his scenario # 2, if someone is not married to Ruby, Drupal is the obvious way to go. The modular design means that adding new functionality is generally trivial (by adding or extending an existing module) so there's no need to hack the core. Why reinvent the wheel when you get a CMS with localization, ecommerce, security, user management, query building etc etc etc all for free?