I used to do custom design.

I did use several 3rd party CMS when the projects fit. The 3rd party CMS I used were mostly for the special purposes, such as phpbb for forum, php gallery for gallery, zencart/oscommerce for ecommerce, wordpress for blog only etc.

I had set up drupal, joomla, CodeIgniter, expressionEngine, wordpress in my developing server and tried to show the clients or the art/creative designer the solution of using the framework CMS.

But due to the high end requirements for the art/design demands, and due to the customer specific requirements in the function and feature part.

Drupal or Joomla are not easy to be custom designed (I can write my own codes easier than write patches for them). Wordpress I only use for the blog, but when it comes to its other usage such as real estate web site design, I went to my own design. In my experience, I didn't see Joomla, Drupal and wordpress (for usages other than blog) would go very far.

But when I check the job markets, so called Joomla, drupal and wordpress php developers are in high demands. Is there a trend in the web design market that giving up customer unique demands which require extensive php developing in exchange of using cost effective mass produced web sites from joombla or drupal?

When comes to use Framework, less employers ask for CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine, more ask for joomla, drupal and wordpress? Just because the first group still requires a lot of php experience and developing on your own, the second group requires less experience / less your own developing?

When come to use framework, which one should I go? CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine, Wordpress, drupal, joombla? That is the order I have, but I would like to listen to second opinions.

Some framework projects seem to be a great idea in the beginning, but when it grows, more new versions, modules, plug ins etc. later. It grows itself to the death (not simple and clean as it was before any more.) So from the above list, which one should I put on top to avoid this trouble later on.

Thanks!

    For this discussion, I would describe CodeIgniter as a PHP "framework" (along with things like CakePHP, Symfony, et al), while drupal, joomla, expressionEngine, and wordpress are CMS's (Content Management Systems).

    In a general sense, you could say that the CMS's are targeted toward some specific area of functionality with the idea that a non-programmer can make use of them (and a programmer can make much more use of them); whereas a framework is targeted strictly toward programmers, giving them a set of building blocks (to mix the metaphor) with which to build a web site.

    If a particular web site fits well with the sort of thing supported by a given CMS and you have at least some experience with installing and configuring that CMS, chances are that could be a very efficient way to build that site in terms of development time. But when it becomes of case of the proverbial square peg in the round hole, it might be a hindrance, and you'd be better off with either a different CMS or else building it yourself, perhaps based on the framework(s) you like to use.

    If someone just wanted a very basic web site but with a blog, I'd probably go with WordPress. If someone else wanted a more complex site with assorted custom functionality, I'd likely use CodeIgniter as the framework (since I know it), and possibly merge in other specific tools (Wordpress, VBulletin, etc.) if/where they make sense to use. But there is never one formula and one specific tool that always applies to all web sites I might work on.

      Thanks! Very helpful. I have been doing the same as you do. But more in my own developing focusing on certain industries, such as ecommerce, online marketing or real estate. I would like to use more CodeIgniter less my own developing to expand my experience. But just the trend too many employers are asking for drupal and joomla php developers make me think, do drupal or joomla get more market shares than they deserve? Or the market is asking for more quick food and we just have to deal with it?

        <speculation>Chances are that those employers churn out one site after another with the same basic design based on the specific CMS they decided to use (for whatever reason), and a lot of the work is just changing the artwork and the back-end data for each new site (at least for those sites that fit their basic design/formula). In some cases they may spend more money on a graphic artist and copy editor than they do on programming when the general site concept fits in well with one of their templates. In those cases, they just need a programmer to make whatever tweaks are needed to accommodate any special features not common to their normal template, and other wise it's mostly database set-up/population and configuration tweaks.</speculation>

          Yet they still charge the client as if it were all custom code.

            NogDog wrote:

            and other wise it's mostly database set-up/population

            And CRUD for site management.

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