On Sunday 26 Mar 2017 09:45:09 Michael Orlitzky wrote: > On 03/26/2017 04:28 AM, Peter Humphrey wrote: > > Pelican looks interesting; I may follow it up. I didn't say this before > > (one thing at a time, eh?) but I need to build a site that another > > choirman can take over from me at some time. That seems to rule out > > anything that smacks of script writing, because as far as I know, > > nobody else has the slightest interest in computers, never mind > > programming. > > > > I notice that no-one has mentioned WordPress. I had a look at it, but > > was > > scared off by the Gentoo devs' waving around of garlic and crosses. > > Choosing a CMS is a textbook example of "pick your poison." We usually > go with either Wordpress or Drupal. > > The design of Drupal is much better, technically. Every feature is part > of a "module" that you can turn off. The API is well-documented, and > it's easy to write new modules. A "content type" in Drupal is a thin > abstraction over a database table, and you can build pretty much > anything you want by creating the right content type and then creating a > "view" to display it how you want. > > The end result can be nicer for end users; for example, you can give > them a button to create a new employee, or a newsletter, or a blog > entry... and each one of those content types will have separate fields > and a separate UI. The trade-off is that nothing works out-of-the-box in > Drupal, and it will take you two weeks to get all of that set up. > > With Wordpress, you get a nice, clean, easy-to-use site in about five > minutes. If that site will work for you -- i.e. if all you need is > pages, menu items, a contact form, and whatever else you can get from > pre-existing plugins -- do that! > > Wordpress is made for non-technical users but I don't mean that in a bad > way. I've been doing Wordpress updates on some sites for over five > years, and it's never crashed and made me stop what I was doing to fix > it. Plugin updates are similarly easy, but I can echo what Mick said: > you need to pay attention to the update notifications, and they come > frequently. > > All CMSes have terrible security records, so the fact that Wordpress > gets hacked all the time shouldn't lead you to believe that another CMS > would fare any better. You can make any CMS a lot more secure in two > simple ways: > > 1. Always update ASAP. > 2. Don't make your website writable by the anonymous web user. > > The second one means that you will have to update over SSH, at least as > long as you maintain the site, but severely limits the damage that a > hacker can do with a tiny exploit.
Interesting. Another contributor, another opinion. :-) I already have books on WordPress and Joomla, and I've just ordered one on Drupal. Then I can take my time experimenting and comparing. Thanks again to all. I'm certainly learning today. -- Regards Peter
