Date: 10/05/06 (PHP Development)    Keywords: cms, php, mysql, css, html, sql, web

I am looking for some opinions on how to best approach creating a web site with a CMS system.

I was originally thinking of implementing various bits of code freely available online and then merging them to play nicely together as one for a client of mine but came across some rather unique-looking packages on the web. One of these packages is Typo3, although I have some concerns about it.

Typo3 seems to be amazing in the sense that it literally "has it all"--guestbooks, galleries, tracking, comments, CMS, easy editors, etc.--but this is also what worries me. As a web designer and developer, I adhere to strict XHTML/CSS standards and to the separation of content and representation for web design. My concern is that as a huge monolithic package, it looks terribly susceptable to some terrible, broken HTML and design-procedures that would be near impossible to fix.

I have also come across CMS Made Simple but haven't had much of an opportunity to delve into it. It is very likely to suffer from these same things, although I do not think, from memory, that it was as full blown a project.

Now keep in mind, I am a much stronger designer than developer but I am quite able to dive into code and hack and adjust things as needed as I have experience in PHP, MySQL, and the like. Does anyone have any experience with these packages or others like them? Would it make more sense for me to develop an entire system from scratch or by piecing smaller works together?

Any recommendations or opinions would be very much appreciated.

PS. If this was a due-by-next-week thing, it would be a no-brainer. The client wants this done ASAP, but not necessarily so fast as to comprimise quality.

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/php_dev/72753.html