Comments on: The world’s worst WCMS

By: Adriaan Bloem

Adriaan Bloem — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:42:51 +0000

Yeah, but then you’re already narrowing down to *productized* systems, and still, the owners *thinking* it is/was better than others doesn’t mean… Well, never mind, mincing words here, I don’t really disagree with you

By: seth

seth — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:38:28 +0000

@adriaan, I didn’t write “the perfect WCMS for someone.” I just wrote “best.” No system is perfect. But the fact that a WCMS was productized indicates that the owners thought they answered the requirements better than other alternatives in the market. In other words, they thought it was the best solution to their problem and probably other problems like theirs.

By: Adriaan Bloem

Adriaan Bloem — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:22:49 +0000

You say “In fact, I would go so far as to say that every WCMS is (or at least was) the best WCMS for someone. The reason is this: every WCMS product was built to someone’s specifications.” The problem with that argument, of course, is that most systems fail to meet the requirements. (And most requirements are flawed.) So that doesn’t really hold water.

The real reason there is no “worst WCMS” is the same reason there isn’t a “best WCMS”. There are so many possible variations on scenarios that I rarely come across a system I’d unequivocally say about “never use that.”

Of course, in practice, I’m much happier discussing the positive choice rather than the negative. And yeah, there are some pretty terrible ones out there.

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:01:41 +0000

Ahhh it’s reminding me the adventures for a cms we worked on together. If that client could understand your post, I’m sure they would perform better

By: Markus Giesen

Markus Giesen — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:28:34 +0000

I believe the worst CMS is where you (the editor) end up thinking the most because other people (the developers) haven’t done enough thinking upfront.

And by thinking I don’t mean coding. We could all save so much more time (and code) by thinking first before starting to write product code. (apply that to cars, houses, … you name it)

By: Andy Rowland

Andy Rowland — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:04:27 +0000

You mention no vendors. Is this to appear impartial? Come on Seth, name and shame!

By: Matt Hamilton

Matt Hamilton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:06:56 +0000

I asked a question similar to this via twitter, but didn’t get any response:

“How many CMSs are reducing code base, and how many increasing?”

E.g. with Plone, Plone 4 is about 20% smaller code base than Plone 3. This is due to the product maturing and legacy code being removed that is no longer needed.

At the same time no significant new features are being added to Plone 4, but to improve upon everything that is already there (e.g. better visual editor, 400% faster, better large file support).

I’m curious as to if Plone is alone in this, or if other CMSs out there have been reducing their codebase and generally tightening up, or marching towards growing more and more features?

-Matt

By: Damian Webber

Damian Webber — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:01:54 +0000

This should be The World’s Worst WCMS implemenation firms (based on complexity over cost plus time to meet those original business requiremnts). That would be interesting as there’s (a simple formula to workout) your ROI on a CMS product!