I respectfully disagree 100% with your assessment of Drupal. It allows you
to do literally anything you want and you don't have to start from ground
zero. You can take an existing module and do anything you want with it
within the boundaries / limitations of PHP / CSS / MySQL.
Drupal is MUCH more than a "CMS" framework.
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brandtley
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 10:49 AM
To: Refresh Austin
Subject: [Refresh Austin: 4840] Re: CMS vs Frameworks: Which one is
recommended to learn with?
Hey Jamil,
I'm not very experienced in many frameworks but have done some in-
depth work with a couple CMS' that you listed. Drupal and Joomla to be
specific. And although they offer great capabilities for web
developers and designers, they just don't have the same level of
access and complexity when it comes to implementing functionality. You
can create your own modules of course, but like you said, they're
fairly limited access wise and are requierd to comply with the
structure of the CMS.
However, with an application framework such as CakePHP, or Code
Ignitor, you have much more flexibility to create whatever app you
choose. Frameworks are designed for rapid application development,
where you take out the mundane rewriting of your source code and
develop on top of what is already there. Most of the well known
frameworks are designed to be stable and reliable, and have usually
been around long enough to offer a large user base and community where
you can get help from. Really there is no limit to what can be done
with an application framework, however the learning curve for most is
a little daunting at first.
So to racap, CMS' are designed to manage content with some
functionality implementation, and Frameworks are bare-bone code
structures to develop your app on top of.
Hope that clears some things up for you.
On Jan 14, 10:34 am, Jamil Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote:
Good morning Refresh,
I'm an aspiring web applications developer and I'm curious as to
everyone's
thoughts on which technology would help me to learn all aspects of web
applications. I lean towards back-end stuff, but considering I've got very
little experience in any area, I consider it important to get a solid
foundation in all areas.
By CMS, I'm referring to technologies such as Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress,
etc. By Frameworks, I am referring to CakePHP, Symphony, etc. I know each
has it promoters and detractors. I have heard the opinion that CMS
technologies obscure much of the coding - you simply input content,
classify
it an article or whatever, add a few modules, and that's it. The end
result
may be the same with both technologies; you get a working web application.
However if you have to modify your app's functionality, a CMS may limit
you
on what you can do, or even worse, limit your imagination about what's
possible because your so used to working within the confines of the CMS.
The
counter argument to this is that if you know exactly what you're looking
for, it will faster and simpler to implement your app with a CMS than a
Framework.
Again, these are opinions that I have heard and can neither confirm nor
deny. I would guess the best method to answer each question is through
personal experience, but I believe Refreshers probably have experience
with
both. So I ask, which do recommend learning with?
Thanks,
-Jamil
