Why Write Your Own?
A Content Management System, in my definition anyway, is a piece of software that takes all the content: text, images, links etc and manages them. It also understands the relationship between items. It also has enough intelligence to be able to present the content to the end user.
Previously on mungenet I have used Userland Frontier – and specifically a piece of code I wrote myself for Fairfax@Atlanta. The main lesson I learnt from writing this was that “structure defines navigation” and that “structure should be described in the database”. Therefore, its easy to add to the structure of the site – and the navigation will follow. The central premise of this is that the relationship between items is key to the rendering of the navigational pieces on the site.
After moving away from my home grown Fairfax@Atlanta system, I transitioned to a combination of GoLive for the bulk of the content and a variety of systems for the “blogging” first page.
Initially, I used Blogger for easily adding notes on a daily basis. Followed by Radio Userland – a free piece of software based on Frontier. For about 2 months in late 2001 I used a combination of PHP and MySQL as my first foray into PHP coding.
The mungenetengine as you see it today is a full PHP and MySQL based content management system that also contains and serves binary elements (PDF, images, SWF) as well as the HTML snippets. It renders the navigation from the relationship hierachy in the system from templates, as well as permitting arbitary pieces of code to run server side.
The most recent additions to the server-side code is the ability to switch content snippets and templates based on the client’s browser environment. There are alternate templates for Netscape 4.7 and earlier.
Once the data is stored in a database, it becomes extremly easy to bolt on features that permit easier creation and editing of content. In May 2002, a SOAP interface was added for a VB client application. In July 2002 a RSS XML feed was added.
There are many, many other systems that manage content for web sites. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. As I consider cutting code a hobby rather than a profession, its really cool to have something you have written working in production on a daily basis.