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So I had this idea. I was going to write an article for alistapart.com. I love A List Apart. Everyone who works in my industry should read it regularly. Including me. I got all excited because I had this idea that I could write an article about how content management systems are so clearly the wave of the future, but that because they’re so clearly the wave of the future, everyone is making them, and now they are crashing down onto the internet like some kind of tsunami rather than the calm relaxing waves they could be. I got so far as to compose my email to the editors:

I would like to write an article tentatively titled “Content Management: Is it for everyone?” The article will examine the phenomenon of content management systems, explain their benefits (template systems, dynamic content, no-brainer editing) and drawbacks (features not matching function, server requirements, burden of complexity) all from a web developer’s perspective. I will conclude that content management systems are in their “terrible teens” and that unless you’re a web development firm who wants to compete with the big boys, or an ISP trying to give something useful to your customers, custom development is still where it’s at. However, this will not be true in ten years.

I knew it was more than the asked for 2 sentences. And I was going to shorten it… maybe. But then I had a thought. (Probably first one of the day.) What if they already have an article about content management? Now I’m in a pickle. Because the only real article that I could find on content management is pretty old. But it covers a lot of the same ground I’d been proposing. Also, the guy who wrote the article is from madison wisconsin, and he apparently developed this 3D shockwave pong that I found distracting. Damn him and his cheese-eating web-development!

3 Replies to “dummy content”

  1. I think you should write this for our work blog. I love this perspective. It’s certainly a discussion we had in the beginning too. But we decided we did want to compete. The dialogue is so valuable, tho.

  2. The great thing about CMS “competition” is that the average client probably doesn’t even know it’s going on. They don’t see a difference between custom development and your out-of-the-box content management system anyway. The downside of that, of course, is that they want the CMS to perform exactly as they envision it, which means you have to program flexibly.

    I will no doubt revisit this for the clockwork blog. ;)

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