Open source and such

vaaaska

I've built a cms that does alot of things and now that I've reached a point where I can no longer really take it much further (due to lack of skills and time) I'm considering some options - maybe some of y'all might have some ideas?

First of all, it's just another cms. However, it can drive a real website; multiple personal blogs; editing of pretty much everything like css, js, templates; group forum and personal notes (with a quasi-calendar system); photo galleries; newsletters; and anything else somebody might need. As far as I can tell it's pretty compliant on any browser 5.x and up (however M$ tends to be irritiable at random moments). It's quite easy to add new modules as the menu system is dynamic as well. One large thing it's lacking is a template system that outputs files instead of relying upon templates to pull info from the database when called upon.

Coding? Ummm, it's just me that hatched this thing over a year ago when I discovered that my 8 months working with a bad cms company was really for nothing. So, I took my research and spent most of my free time doing and learning (and it has been ALOT of fun).

But now I've basically put this thing together, and have even installed a few for clients, but I'm not sure what to do. I'd certainly like to see more happen with it but it would need a group of open source people (I think) to make it happen any further. Plus, I fully support the open source concept especially since it's only due to the generosity of mostly phpbuilder forums in spirit and mind that I have done this.

So anyways, what's a person to do? Or, with so many cms' out there (most of which suck) should I really even bother? I don't want to simply walk away from this thing but at the same time I don't think I have the skills to take this thing to a higher level. It's kind of hard to give up control over something that has become a passion of sorts...

I hope this isn't considered advertising a product - I don't think that's what I'm doing here.

Thanks for any thoughts, vaska

bubblenut

<PernsonalOpinion>
You ask if you should even bother. Yes. Even if it turns out that you are the only developer that provides this CMS then that's OK. You can provide it for your clients and if they like it everything's peachy. With regards to contributing it to the OO community, I would also say yes. I personally believe it doesn't matter if there are one hundred, one thousand or evenone million other similar products out there more should always be welcome. It increases the digital gene pool and allows for greater evolution. If it doesn't prove strong enough it won't becode popular, simple as that, but even in the worst case scenario (which I am certain will not happen) where none decide to use it, it will have at least taught people some lessons. On the other hand it, or some aspect (gene if you like) of it could work it's way up to being one of the most used CMSs around. That, I believe, is where one of the really fun aspects of OO development comes into play. Creating your program and then watching it grow and breed (or possibly stumble and fall).
Step one, as always, would be to start it as a Sourceforge project and then post the details to it here so I can join 😃
</PersonalOpinion>

ATB
Bubble

vaaaska

Yeah, it's like have kids (of which I have none so far). The strong point is not the coding I'm sure, but in the overall design of how it works. I doubt it's so original, but I haven't seen something this simple (and maybe there is a reason for that) as I had done alot of research into cms' at one point.

And then again, I think every parent thinks their kid is unique and best. 😉

I guess I should research sourceforge more (I've stayed away from it mostly because I can't make sense of its structure and I've found so many worthless things on it). And I should not be so afraid of letting this thing go but what worries me the most is the high school mentality that people will laugh at me. "This is the worst code I've ever seen", kind of thing. Except, I've seen under the hood of some non-Open Source cms' and what they were doing was insanely pathetic compared to what I've done (if I need to boost my ego a little). I'm a Virgo, I worry about everything...

I'm going to put up a demo site next week and get people playing with it again - maybe I'll find some answers in the process.

dalecosp

My experience with a Sourceforge project leads me to believe that many who start such projects, looking for help, will ultimately be disappointed because they get very little help...

The reason for this, again only by my estimate, is that actually the original coder is better than the majority of the other Sourceforge users (those that have time to donate, that is---anyone who is good is usually up to his/her elbows in projects already), and therefore those users are too timid to offer their services, or, if they do (and some may), they are overwhelmed by the project and feel like their contribution isn't likely to be of much value. The team leader must clearly delineate responsibilities and standards (and face the possibility of finding no one willing/able to meet them), or else say "whatever works will be OK", and be prepared in that case to spent time hacking together potentially disparate pieces of code to work as a unit. (I might say, "whatever that works and is better than what we have already is OK, actually....)

My advice: try it, and see. You might get lucky and find some people who are of like mind and skills, and willing to help. Worst case --- you lose a few hours setting up stuff at sourceforge, more time learning cvs (if you've not used it before), and then it never goes anywhere. Best case --- you make a good and positive contribution to the Internet community-at-large ... your choice, of course 😉

vaaaska

Yeah, I'm still not impressed with Sourceforge - it would be a waste of time. I believe in very specific targeted marketing and this is what I think I will ultimately do, but I will still let the wind carry things. Sharing with the community is a great thing, but not if you don't really have time for it.

BuzzLY

If you are using this product with customers, then I say keep going in that direction. The best way to figure out what to do next with your application is to have the customer tell you what they would like to do with it. That will usually get your creative juices flowing, and you'll come up with even more ideas. Just be sure to write them all down. Some of my greatest ideas never came to fruition because I forgot all about it 5 minutes later!

Something I'll do when developing an application, when I run out of ideas to expand, I'll go in the other direction, and contract. In other words, switch from creative mode to anal mode. Go through your code and figure out how to improve it. Does it make sense to encapsulate some of your functions into objects? Is there any place where you have bottlenecks and high processor loads that you can fix?

Sometimes, while doing that, I get ideas for some new thing, and I'm off and running in creative mode again 🙂

vaaaska

Good advice B and I realized that it's my little baby and I'll bring it along in a way that grows naturally. Whatever happens will happen.

silent

I've never been ambitious enough to write a CMS, but I have
always wanted to (mostly because existing CMS solutions are
overly bloated because they try to cater to EVERYONE)
I say do what you think is best. I would certainly like to see your CMS.

Good luck!

vaaaska

I'll post some kind of a note about it soon. I was trying to get a demo site put together before I left on vacation but clients can mysteriously pop up when you least expect them (which is a good thing too), so it will be a couple weeks from now.

Thanks...v