I've become increasingly concerned about a topic of conversation I've intentionally begun to broach with web developers as of late. Perhaps our wonderful Mangolassi community can help me to understand where my thinking has gone so astray from the norm when it comes to Content Management Systems.
Somewhere around three years ago I installed my first copy of MODX Revolution on my sandbox and have never looked back. I've created some beautiful and efficient websites with great in-line content management features, robust and feature-rich social networks, even matched up with Magento to create a seamless content to shopping experience.
The code snippets, chunks, and plugins allowed me to work with whatever language appealed to me as best for the specific task at hand. Instead of having to teach a user a new CMS back-end, I just put all the tools they'd need directly on the front-end after they login to an authorized account. It's been a real game changer.
However, upon talking to other developers in-person, even as recently as this week, no one has ever heard of MODX. They'll swear by Wordpress to this day, building cumbersome plugins and even modifying the source directly, breaking any ability to update security patches. TBH, I'd rather go back to drupal than use Wordpress. Even for the end-user the CMS back-end for Wordpress is awkward and requires significant training. I've stumbled into some CMS conversations with developers that have left me speechless and backing away slowly.
I can't find a good explanation for this phenomena besides the dreaded "comfort zone."
How could they never have even heard of it, do they read IT forums, blogs, whitepapers? If not, why not? What's going on here?
Perhaps all MODX needs is a big PR push, but I feel as if the dev community is missing out.
Thanks for reading, and I hope I didn't step on your toes. Happy hump-day!
