The Diem project is an interesting project. It started as a fork of a CMS system (sfSimpleCMS). This was version 1.x. The next major version, 2.x was mainly focussed on internationalization. 3.x featured a big rewrite and with it new features. Version 4.x, again is a complete rewrite and 4.5.x is deemed “very stable” and is used for a lot of big projects. That is how the site of Diem summed it all up. But perhaps most important (and cool) is version 5.0 which was finally released as a stable release on March 11th 2010. Not only is it cool that once again it has been completely rewritten, no the coolest thing is that it is now open source! Behind the scenes it is driven by Symfony and Doctrine (since 5.0.0) which are both open source too.

It is worth noting how the project positions itself between a CMS and application framework. The original authors call the project a CMF which is short for Content Management Framework. The reason for this is that you build your own CMS with this framework. By configuring all the features you need, Diem will automatically generate source code for your site so you can start managing content. The framework contains many commonly used features which  can be re-used within your own site. Examples of features are: admin panels, SEO, automatic search engine (using Zend_Search_Lucene). The idea of a CMF is not unique, but still pretty cool.

Since the project is a newcomer to the open source playground I think it is worth trying it and if you like it support the project. Open source initiatives should be embraced for it is through collaboration that we can achieve the most. Of course it’s not perfect (and nothing will ever be “perfect”), however this should be an added incentive to try and give feedback.

The site offers a gold mine of information on how to get started creating your first Diem driven site. A reference book, howtos and tutorials should get you on the right track. See this post on their site for more information on the 5.0.0 release and browse around for more information about the project.