Skip to content

JA6. Joomla CMS Reflection

This was the 6th week of this course; it was about Joomla CMS. I started the week as usual on Sunday by reading the recommended web pages. I spent some time reading the Joomla documentation, which sounded like a product worthy of a try.

I learned about the Joomla open-source products, including the content management system and the web framework. I also read about Joomla partners, showcases of clients using Joomla, and some Youtube videos.

I also learned that volunteers run Joomla, but under some supervision of a company called Open Source Matter OSM. This kind of management of the open source and volunteering powers was interesting; I worked on open source myself, and the management scheme was different.

I also created my Joomla website; it was interesting that Joomla got me free hosting on their partner CloudAccess.net. I have extensive experience working with WordPress, so I found it easy to navigate, but naming things was different. I spent some time exploring available options, themes/plugins and widgets (what they call modules in Joomla world).

I explored the jobs related to Joomla as part of the discussion assignment. I did extract the first ten jobs from both Indeed and LinkedIn; then, I aggregated the mentioned skills into numbers. The numbers showed an interesting correlation between a few skills and factors, but this was not a robust scientific approach. Here are some of my findings:

  • Every job that mentioned Joomla as a required skill listed PHP, Javascript, HTML, and CSS as required skills.
  • More than half of the jobs required WordPress and Drupal.
  • Half of the jobs required Git, Jira, Agile, or MySQL.
  • Half of the jobs required RESTful APIs and React/Angular.
  • Half of the jobs required JQuery, which was a surprise since JQuery is almost dying elsewhere.
  • Almost a third of the jobs required Laravel/Symphony, Ecommerce, Magento, or UI/UX tools like Adobe package.

Because I found many jobs when searching for Joomla, I now value the importance of this course and this chapter even more. Joomla has many products and training resources; one of them is the Joomla framework, an independent MVC (model-view-controller) framework built on PHP and used in building customized web products that do not rely on Joomla’s CMS. Joomla CMS itself is a product built on top of the Joomla Framework.

Joomla has an astonishing number of training resources, which are perfectly categorized by the role, and then organized by difficulty. For example, they have docs for Administrators, Developers, and Designers. Each is organized into beginners’ or advanced topics so the reader can go directly to the right place to find information. The Joomla team also recommends third-party training institutions or the community forum.

Everything seemed complicated initially, but by the end of this week, I got enough information about Joomla. I would not initialize a new project using Joomla, but I have the required skills to deal with legacy projects if I have to. As a personal preference, WordPress is easier to deal with and more flexible, customizable and beginner friendly. However, Joomla’s performance, access control management, and availability of high-quality training seem appealing.

References