Yet another CMS: but wait! this is different…

Well, maybe not different, but it has something that I’ve yet to see with any other CMS. Digitalus is built on the Zend Framework, adopting the MVC pattern with a familiar directory layout that most ZF developers recognize. This in itself makes up for the repetition of being yet another CMS solution. And this is what makes it a harbinger of PHP application development. It will no longer be about the “killer app”, it will be about the framework.

So why is this a big deal?
Digitalus demonstrates the practicality of building applications using an open framework. The current giants on the CMS landscape had to create their own infrastructure out of necessity and this, unfortunately, has spawned separate ecosystems for developers. You almost have to pick a project and stick with it and use it for every project because of the investment in learning it. Then the “everything is a nail because all you have is a hammer” syndrome sets in and before you realized what happened you try creating an e-commerce site using Drupal or Joomla … fortunately that is changing. In fact I would not be surprised to see the gradual migration of the current major projects to adopting a common framework. Will the common framework be the Zend Framework? Probably. Since it is backed by the Zend the PHP company the Zend Framework will have the inside track on all the technical advances of the PHP language it is built on.

Is Digitalus it? The next great CMS?
I doubt it, but that is no longer the point. So while we are waiting for the big paradigm shift take a look at the Digitalus project as a good introduction to the Zend Framework. I can see it being used as the base code for a new application that needs to have all the basic web site features like: database storage, page creation, user management, and themes. With Digitalus a developer will not need to “learn” a new system(Drupal, Joomla, Word Press, etc.) to add features. The only requirement will be familiarity with the Zend Framework. Now this is good for us because at work we have selected the Zend Framework as the standard for new application development.

My First impression.
With only a quick run through of the installation and creating a user and editing a page I was impressed not so much by what I saw but by the possibilities. However an immediate drawback is the requirement of installing in the root of the host. This will have to be changed to make it practical.

Links
The Digitalus project home page
The CMS-Wire review
Zend Framework MVC Quick Start

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