Update: this post is a bit dated, since I am no longer working on the project described, but I am still thinking about turning this into a sample project that may help others that could benefit from putting together their own CMS.

I have been running a public-facing content-managed website for a number of years. It’s purpose has turned out to be more theoretical than practical, due to the fact that most of its planned uses never materialized, even after development was complete (ouch!).

The present problem to be solved is that the existing website is far more complex than is really necessary. It consumes server resources out of proportion to its importance, and requires a level of programmer expertise that is just plain unreasonable under the circumstances. There were good reasons for this when the site was created, but times have changed and what is needed now is a simple, content-managed database query website.

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