CMS Discussion Pros and Cons

[Bryan Herbst]

Originally Posted by synth3tk

By the way, using a CMS isn't cheating at all. Quite a few large companies and businesses (not to mention our own government) use CMSes. So if FIRST is preparing students and teams for the real world, then using Drupal or Joomla is right on track.

I couldn't agree more. As a matter of fact, I would highly encourage all teams towards using CMSs for that reason. Most companies have employees who need to be able to add content to websites, but don't necessarily know how to use HTML. Similarly, allowing such individuals to edit the files on the server could be disastrous.

I recently got a job working with a research lab on campus as an IT guy, and one of the major reasons that I was able to get that job is that I gained experience working with Drupal as I built and maintained my teams website.

If you think that using a CMS is cheating, there are plenty of ways to use a CMS and challenge yourself. Build your own custom Drupal modules or make your own theme. Both will give you something to do while providing excellent experience for the future.