I want to build my own CMS from scratch- are there any good tutorials out there?

Just for the uninitiated, CMS == Code Management System.

Revision control (also known as version control (system) (VCS), source control or (source) code management (SCM)) is the management of multiple revisions of the same unit of information. It is most commonly used in engineering and software development to manage ongoing development of digital documents like application source code, art resources such as blueprints or electronic models, and other projects that may be worked on by a team of people.

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And um, no, sorry, got no suggestions for ya. :-\

A from-scratch CMS is a ton of work. TextPattern was written from scratch and took the author a number of years to write. WordPress was written from scratch and is the most popular CMS out there today. Both are free and require PHP/MySQL to run.

It depends on how complicated you want it to be. A basic cms can be written in a couple of days with a little php/mysql knowledge or even a book.

A good cms though will take quite a bit more time.

Personally I use etomite, as its very simple to template for and for users to be trained on.

http://code.google.com/p/cmsfromscratch/
Good Luck! -Dr. Phil

Yeah, I know a CMS would be a ton of work, but I figured it would be just as much, if not more, to customize an existing CMS to fit my purposes.

Unless you intend to use your CMS for thousands of dollars worth usage, there is no point of building an entirely new CMS from scratch

Customizing an existing CMS has become a lot easier over the years. A few months ago, a new service called CushyCMS launched which is probably the best CMS client for people who like customization and simplicity. As of right now its still invites only. But heres a nice tutorial on building websites with CushyCMS

Depending on the features you want this could be exceedingly easy or terribly complicated. Can you elaborate on what it is you expect your CMS to do? (I’m assuming you mean Content Management System).

I just want to have a simple CMS that I can use to upload photos and edit text, nothing fancy. I’ve built several wordpress templates, and they are exceedingly complicated for what I want to accomplish, which is just a simple backend for a portfolio site.

@jballou: have you ever tried tumblr ?Trust me – it doesnt get easier. Its not a cms but a publishing platform but i know a bunch of people who have created awesome portfolios out of it

@robmandu – I really thought it was Content Management System :). VCS is the more mainstream term for Version Control Systems :)

@question – if you know PHP and MySQL you should already be able to build your own CMS. If the reason for creating your own CMS is “for fun”, then I’d say: go for it! Otherwise, you probably want to customize an existing CMS. There’s plenty that can do what you want, though it wouldn’t take that long to build it yourself either.

@Vincentt: I refer to a CMS as a ‘Content Management System’ to clients, simply because it makes more sense to them.

Hell, I originally thought it was “Conversational Monitoring System” from IBM mainframe.

It’s an oft used acronym.

@mirza: CushyCMS looks like something to keep an eye on, thanks for the recommendation.

@robmandu – hehe, gotta love TLA’s :)

@Vincentt, man, you’re funny! ;-D

@mirza: Actually, looks like CushyCMS has opened up from beta. Definitely something to have a quick look at for small projects. Neat!

On the highly-recommended web mailing list thelist there has been a detailed discussion for the past two weeks of the relative merits of rolling your own, using an existing open source CMS or buying one. You might find good answers there.