Starting new site - get prototype up and then rewrite it later?

fluffmct

fluffmct

fluffmct

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I have a site idea (I think it's great but I could well be wrong!) and I was wondering if you guys have any advice as to where to go next.

I don't have any experience making websites, although I am a software developer so I think I could pick it up quick enough if I needed to. With that in mind, my priority is to get this site up and running so I can see if the idea is actually worth pursuing.

I'd like to avoid getting the site rewritten obviously so you'd imagine just writing it correctly in the first place would make sense but if my inexperience is going to make that an impossibility I'm guessing I should just use an existing CMS? The functionality is nothing extraordinary, although the site needs user accounts (or to be able to log in via Facebook) and there will be some mathematical functionality that will relate back to the homepage - people will vote up different articles and there will be a rating system on the front page.

I know these type of questions come up on here regularly but I couldn't quite find one to address this, maybe because it is quite vague!
 
Ah right.

If you're writing code from scratch and don't have much in the way of formal study/training/experience like a degree in Software Development or significant background reading in Software Engineering - then your code may be functionally sound but messy in layout/adherence to standards. Hence if you are writing pure code with minimal experience/knowledge then another dev will struggle/not enjoy picking up the thread and re-working even simple snippets of your code.

Whereas if you develop a site using a CMS it does to a greater extent take the code layout/standards out of your hands and makes it easier for other devs to develop it further down the line without your input.
 
fluffmct said:
I have a site idea (I think it's great but I could well be wrong!) and I was wondering if you guys have any advice as to where to go next.

I don't have any experience making websites, although I am a software developer so I think I could pick it up quick enough if I needed to. With that in mind, my priority is to get this site up and running so I can see if the idea is actually worth pursuing.

I'd like to avoid getting the site rewritten obviously so you'd imagine just writing it correctly in the first place would make sense but if my inexperience is going to make that an impossibility I'm guessing I should just use an existing CMS? The functionality is nothing extraordinary, although the site needs user accounts (or to be able to log in via Facebook) and there will be some mathematical functionality that will relate back to the homepage - people will vote up different articles and there will be a rating system on the front page.

I know these type of questions come up on here regularly but I couldn't quite find one to address this, maybe because it is quite vague!
Click to expand...

What kind of software dev do you normally do? I imagine anything will give you a good basis to start in the world of web development.

A CMS will should produce what you want a lot quicker; you should spend more effort keeping the thing patched though, as they tend to be hijacked if you're not on the ball.

Your site will probably never grow beyond the needs of a CMS and if it does, you'll then have enough reason to spend the time rewriting it anyway. Beyond that just decide what you'd rather do. Spend some time learning web dev and making your site, or spend some time learning, installing, configuring and perodically updating a CMS.

Edit: Given you're a software dev, it might benefit you to learn this stuff too. If you understand the you need validate input, working with databases, OOP, seperation of concernsa and the security pitfalls associated with the work, then it probably doesn't have anything to teach you. If you don't then seriously consider doing it yourself.
 
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Thanks for the responses.

I work in archaic insurance software day to day (COBOL :( ) although I did do a computer science degree around 6 years ago and I'm transitioning over to JAVA in work over the next few months - basically I'm rusty as hell on anything recent.

As far as a CMS goes, can the likes of wordpress handle the functionality I'm after? I know there are more flexible CMS around but it still worries me a bit. The site requires people to log in via Facebook or via an account they create, they can post up articles (adhering to a template of my design) and other people can rate the article which will then be reflected on the homepage e.g. top rated articles in different categories that will refresh.

I have no problem picking up PHP or whatever because I know that a CMS won't do this out of the box, but if the CMS that are out there aren't flexible enough to add this sort of functionality then it'd require starting from scratch obviously. Anyone any ideas as to which CMS might allow for this? If wordpress is flexible enough these days then it'd be ideal because I know it's user friendly for web newbies but I had a problem googling because I don't exactly know what the functionality I'm after is called or how it will be designed.
 
bertles86 said:
Sounds a bit like you are creating a Wiki. There are CMS designed specifically for this, have a Google around "creating personal Wiki".
Click to expand...

Thanks. I don't want the homepage to appear anything like a wiki, in that there's going to be a funky scaling/weighting system based on some articles and I don't want any articles to be edited once they've been posted, but the adding of articles could definitely use a wiki structure so I'll look into that! Hopefully it's not too complex to design the frontend to appear non-wiki or have a custom frontend that just uses the database created by the wiki.
 
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Yeh I think we're on the right track now, there are several Wiki addons for Joomla.

So perhaps make a standard front end in Joomla then install one of the selected Wiki addons and voila.
 
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