CMS System Experience? PHP/MySQL Web Programmers?

This might be a shot in the dark, but I wanted to see if any of you reading this have a lot of experience (3+years) with the various open source content management systems (CMS) for websites, and programming in PHP with MySQL databases. 

At SikhNet we are in the process of planning some major changes and need some advice from professionals who have experience in this area. If this sounds like you….please do send me an email with your contact information and let me know some of your experience, so I can get in touch with you.

 Thank you!

….Gurumustuk Singh

4 Responses to “CMS System Experience? PHP/MySQL Web Programmers?”

1. Prabhu Singh says:

   March 8, 2007 at 4:27 pm

   I have a lot of experience with PHP and MySQL. The problem Gurumustuk Singh Ji, is to learn good programming techniques one needs to go to school. Even if you don’t get a degree in Computer Science to get a good foundation in programming one should take at least two years of CS classes. A single class in relational database design would be immensely beneficial to your staff, however that class may require a certain number of CS pre-requisites. There are a lot of people out there who can program and get things to work, they’re called ‘techies,’ but to get a quality product requires a good education. Good software can save thousands to millions or billions of dollars in the long run, depending on the application. I’m sure Sikhnet could save several thousand a year if it had a computer scientist designing it. If you could afford me, I’d come work for you in a heartbeat :-) Otherwise advice probably won’t work. A surgeon can’t instruct a carpenter how to do open heart surgery. If someone is not familiar with the fundamentals of relational database design, they can’t be given tips on how to design a relational database. A techie would just get something to work, but one bad design decision in database design could cost millions for people who store a lot of data.
   If I had the time I’d do the work for you as a seva and then give advice on how to maintain it, but I don’t have that kind of time.

2. bhupinder singh says:

   March 9, 2007 at 10:44 am

   Gurfateh Gurumustuk,

   I’m using php for past 5yrs and can work with it pretty good. I’m not sure if you’re going to implement your own content management system or build upon existing cms. I’ve extensively used movabletype though its primarily for blogging. For a site like sikhnet i would suggest you to have a look at TYPO3. Drupal and joomla etc are just too bulky and pain to configure leave alone to fix crashes.
   also i would suggest you to make it a collaborative development with few project managers who can develop modules one at a time which you can integrate one by one. just brainstorming

   best wishes
   bhupinder

3. Aman Singh says:

   March 10, 2007 at 11:51 am

   I agree with Prabhu Singh completely. If you just want advice and want to do implementation yourself, it would be difficult. I would suggest you to get experts design this for you. For CMS, I would suggest Joomla. I have been working with joomla and Mambo from a long time and I know how stable it is. Drupal is also a very good candidate. Check out this link:http://www.packtpub.com/award.
   Whichever CMS you choose there are certain steps involved in moving your site over. You don’t have to have big budget to get this done. Infact you don’t have to have any budget to get this done. Sikhnet is doing so much for the community that I am sure there would be many people who would volunteer for this job. If in case you decide to look for someone in Vancouver, Canada then I am in for this job. I have more than 4 years exp developing applications in PHP and Mysql(LAMP). After reading your post, I had chance to talk to two of my friends who also have extensive experience in LAMP. They have also agreed to volunteer for this. Sikhnet has been such a wonderful resource for me that I would love to be of any help.

4. Aman Bhullar says:

   March 14, 2007 at 2:10 pm

   I agree with the replies to this post that it can be a collaborative effort. Since this is for the commmunity and I am sure we all can join-in in this effort.

   All we need is a collaborative efforts from all. We can have project managers, project teams (with developers and the sikhnet team), and I can provide my project management experience for this cause.

   You can see my background at http://www.culgee.com or http://www.linkedin.com/in/ecyclezone. Please let me know if you guys all want to move ahead with this project and we can all collaborate in this. Count me in for this just cause.

   -Aman