DuncanBrown

I have been dipping in and out of using a great open source Rapid Development PHP Framework called cakePHP for the past two years. Developing with this framework has meant I have been able to create functionality in websites a lot quicker and easier than I could ever have done without it.

This was by means my first venture into the world of open source software. As a solo web developer, I have always had to learn how to use the various technologies available, by myself and under my own steam. It was very clear to me from an early stage that if I wanted to learn how to do something, the easiest way would be to look at the approach of other developers.

This started with free scripts I found around the internet which only led to a mess of different scripts which was not maintainable. I then looked for a more complete offering and I came across open source content management systems (CMS) such as Mambo and Joomla, but I always found they were almost too complete. It takes some of the fun out of creating a website, when within just a few clicks hey presto you have a complete website, except for all the features that you really need.