Re: Content Management Systems

On Tue, Aug 30, 2005 at 04:57:35PM -0700, Peggy Huston wrote:
> CNS is doing some preliminary research on Content Management Systems and
> would like to know what is in use on campus already. Please let me know if
> you are using a CMS and what your experience has been. We are speaking
> with SIMS re: "Center in a Box" and would be interested if you have
> experience with the project.
> thank you,
> Peggy

The Math Department is using phpwebsite. Experience has been predominantly
good. The main negative is that it's easy to modify the php code to customize
certain behaviors and add/modify features. The reason that's a negative, in
case it is not obvious, is that it makes it more difficult to keep the
production version in sync with the package as maintained by the developers.

When vulnerabilities were announced and exploits made available to web attack
groups, the developers fixed the problems quickly, but it took several weeks to
implement the security fixes on some highly customized modules.

This same problem (temptation) probably affects many CMSs in use, including
mambo, which is popular on campus. I know that mambo is used in physics and
biology (MCB), and they have done significant modifications to the distributed
package. My advice, regardless of the CMS you choose, is to resist the
temptation to customize the actual code.

Steve

-- 
Steve Sizemore <steve (at) ls.berkeley.edu>, (510) 642-8570
Unix System Manager
    Dept. of Mathematics and College of Letters and Science
    University of California, Berkeley

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