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General Discussion

Cesar Vanbuskirk
Cesar Vanbuskirk
6,672 Points
Posted by Cesar Vanbuskirk
Cesar Vanbuskirk
6,672 Points

When to use Wordpress (any CMS) or hand code?

If I'm freelancing when should I decide to use a cms? What should be the biggest factors in the decision?

4 Answers

James Spolsdoff
James Spolsdoff
13,365 Points
James Spolsdoff
James Spolsdoff
13,365 Points

As a general rule of thumb a CMS is your best choice when you have a website that needs to be updated regularly. If you're building a blog or gallery for a client you need a CMS.

If you're building a static website that rarely requires updates hand coding would be a better choice. This is because you are not bound by the platform-specific limitations of the CMS. As a designer/developer you are only limited by your creativity.

Hope this helps!

Cesar Vanbuskirk
Cesar Vanbuskirk
6,672 Points
Cesar Vanbuskirk
Cesar Vanbuskirk
6,672 Points

Awesome, thanks for the help James!

Jimmy Hsu
Jimmy Hsu
6,511 Points
Jimmy Hsu
Jimmy Hsu
6,511 Points

James is pretty spot on for the most part.

Treehouse seems like they recently released a few videos on this:

http://teamtreehouse.com/library/getting-started-with-wordpress-3

The 3rd and 4th videos in that series seem to be what you need.

Brian MacDonald
Brian MacDonald
4,951 Points
Brian MacDonald
Brian MacDonald
4,951 Points

All of the above points are excellent points, however do not underestimate the power of CMS systems!

With a little php knowledge a static Website can be structured into a wordpress theme to suit all of your needs. Once you have a theme - all one needs to do is create a some custom templates and post structures within these pages.

There is definitely a time and place for all different types of sites, but judge them based on your knowledge, your customers needs and what they plan to deliver to their clientele. In the end, everyone will leave happy!