Book review: Content Management Systems
Categorised under: Book & product reviews, Content management, Web development
Published by Glasshaus, Content Management Systems (Dave Addey, James Ellis, Phil Suh & David Thiemecke) is very much written by web developers for web developers. The casual, coloquial style of writing should appeal to those readers looking for the real information, without all the hype or jargon.
The book starts by outlining the state of many websites: ad-hoc in design, requiring huge amounts of manual labour. It then spells out the key benefits of implementing a content management system (CMS), and proposes some general principles to follow throughout the project.
The core of the book walks through the key components of a CMS, with a particular focus on the web. Authoring, content management, and publishing are all outlined, although not in great depth. Like the rest of the book, these sections are peppered with useful comments from the authors, along with valuable anecdotes from real projects.
Both buying and building a CMS are explored, although the latter does not really provide enough detail for anyone other than a guru developer to follow. The book then concludes with a walkthrough of the implmentation process, from beginning to end.
If you are a looking for an easy-to-read introduction to better managing your website with a content management system, this is your book. If you are responsible for an intranet, or are looking for more on CMS methodology, you may want to consider other titles.
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 