Hi
Im in a bit of a dilemma? 
I want to build my online portfolio, I like to hand code everything, but as I am a newbie to the freelancing/web designer world its taking me ages to do so.
However I found a excellent cms and was interested in using that.
But would that be classed as cheating as I will using yjeir ready made template but customizing it to what i wantā¦
any views?
Iāve never been worried about a CMS being considered as ācheatingā (although if youāre using it to showcase your web design skills then there might be a bit of a conflict of interests there), the main reason I shy away from using a CMS is because, unless you are willing and able to pay a lot of money, they are pretty uniformly awful.
No, that isnāt fair - they arenāt uniformly awful - some are awful, some are bad, some are dreadful, some are dire, and some sap you of the will to live.
If youāre genuinely using the content management aspect of it, in a way that would require a heck of a lot of back-end work if you wrote it yourself, thatās fair enough. But most of the CMS-built sites donāt - they are essentially just formatting/layout templates that absolve the author from any design or coding work. Thatās not something I could ever recommend to anyone who has the skills to code it themselves.
My advice: find a CMS that fits in with what you want to display and use that. You can better spend your time serving your customers and winning new work, rather than tinkering about with your own website 
Iāve used both cms and html/css hard coding.
Using a cms will get you up and running quickly. But, as soon as you want to do anything slightly out of the ordinary you will find yourself searching for add-ons and plug-ins - some of which are ten times more complicated to implement and understand than html/css. Also, if something goes wrong with your cms, without a background in html/css you will be totally lost - unless you can find someone who is willing to sort out your problems for free.
Using html/css will involve a steep learning curve and on-going learning as both html and css evolve. But, when you have mastered the basics, you will be able to sort out yourself many of the problems that you are bound to encounter. You will also find that you have more flexibility to make your website look and perform exactly how you want it to. However, you will need to spend a good deal of time and effort up front before you actually start creating your website.
Personally, I wouldnāt touch any cms with a dead flash stick. In the long run, I found them to be too much like āa solution dictating the original questionā, or, āthe tail wagging the dogā.
For instance, embedding a YouTube video into a raw html file is a simple copy and paste job - all done in 30 seconds.
Getting that same YouTube video into a cms can involve a major project. How do you decide which plug-in/add-on to use? Are they compatible with the other plug-ins/add-ons you are using? Do they actually work? Are they compatible with your cms version? Are they still supported by the author? Are they free? etc. etc. etc.
Unfortunately, I have worked for clients that have used Joomla, modx and Wordpress. Out of these, I prefer Wordpress as the best of a very poor bunch.
Having said all that, if youāre not really bothered the form your final website takes, how it performs its functions, and you are willing to abandon any feature or function that really isnāt suited to the underlying platform, then you might just possibly make a case for using a cmsā¦
You can use a CMS just to handle complex functionality, while keeping control over the design and feel (HTML/CSS) of the site, so you donāt have to use someone elseās template. I prefer to use ExpressionEngine as a CMS, as it doesnāt dictate what should be in your templates (you start with a blank sheet). And adding a YouTube video is as simple as copying the code from YouTube and pasting it into your template or into an entry field. Very flexible and simple.
As others have said, building your own CMS is a big task, requiring a fair bit of knowhow. The advantage is that the CMS does just what you needāas long as you can figure out how to build it. Kevin Yankās book gives a good introduction to how to do it: Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL, 4th Edition - SitePoint Books
Boxers or briefs?
Each has its advantages and drawbacks. For an individual portfolio site, I think the disadvantages of a CMS far outweigh the advantages. There are a LOT of instances where a CMS is just what you need, but a portfolio site isnāt one of them. :twocents:
thanks guys really appreciate the feedback.
Im thinking might just hand code it.
Just code it by your own needs, Do Not use any CMS since most of CMS will slow down your website with its useless features beyond your own requirements
I prefer coding, you can include whatever you want and do whatever you want with it, perfect
Iām an advocate of either one, handcoding or using a cms. There is one simple thing that should dictate which route you take. Are you in no particular hurry to get your site visible and are taking the time to learn the language of the web in the process or do you want it āout thereā asap? If you want your site out there you should use a cms.
You donāt have to go with something as robust as Drupal or Joomla if you arenāt thinking of really having a community driven website or a ton of different functions (blog, forum, eshops, etc). I would go with WordPress in your case. Its the most popular blogging software for a reason. It doesnāt have such a steep learning curve and it is easy to deploy. You can get zipping along in 5 minutes or less - seriously I do manual installs all the time. Upload the files and a few clicks and BAM your site is up and running and waiting for you to add content.
The cost (in effort and time) in adding additional features like image galleries etc is minimal. Anyone who says it takes a lot of time and frustration to add other features canāt follow instructions properly. It is always a good idea to make large changes such as layouts and new features on a development version of your site first. Thatās even if you are handcoding the site yourself so as to not accidentally kill your live site by mistake.
With all that said I believe there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. If you want to be a web developer handcoding is all well and good (thatās how i started out) but if you want to focus on putting your content out there you are not utilizing your time properly by handcoding. You can slowly change the look of your site as you get more familiar with the lingo and you can make more advanced changes as necessary. To say cms is slow is very misleading. It is all a matter of you optimizing your website. Iāve visited websites made of static html pages that completely bogged my laptop down. Its all about what you are doing and how you are doing it.
Get a good base CMS and add to it. Coding a whole system from scratch is fun in practice, but can cause all sorts of security and other problems if done wrong.
As a freelancer, you are going to need to be able to build both kinds of sites. If you want to build something complex for a client, you just wonāt have the time to build security by hand, and then continually update to keep out the hackers. Itās a full time job!
I really recommend learning a top CMS like Drupal that will allow you to expand your services to clients and take on more āhigh marginā work. Clients have high expectations these days, and suddenly near the end of a project will throw in āso how do I update this myselfā, or ānow I need a gallery/invoicing system/e-commerce siteā without realising what they are asking for in terms of complexity.
Get at least one good CMS system under your belt, plus Wordpress or Joomla for simple sites. When you are your own client you have the time to build in all the whistles and bells and get to grips with advanced templating and which modules really work well.
I would not just use a CMS, but I would use a CMS that you can find a good starting template to work with for the type of site that you are trying to build. As someone mentioned above, spend your time getting and satisfying clients, not dealing with the technicalities of building and/or managing your site.
Iāve used content management systems for instances where I need to get information out quickly. As what others pointed out, without a background in html/css if something gets messed up in your cms, you are going to need to know how to fix it. Iāve even come across where knowing basic php would have been helpful.
As an aspiring website designer, myself, I would say start off with a cms(itāll help when you are ready to build), showing examples of your work, etc . (Over time put in enough changes done to show that you have the ability to design and develop). The first proofs that I find people tend to look for when looking for web designers are what their site looks like and is it w3c validated and for e-commerce related sites security is key.
There seems to be a hot market for CMS though so youāll need to be able to handle both I guess.
But would that be classed as cheating as I will using yjeir ready made template but customizing it to what i wantā¦
WHAT? Are you talking about Web Design or Web Development portfolio?
If you donāt plan to add information on a weekly basis, or make daily tweaks to contentā¦ a CMS is overkill.
As far as CHEATINGā¦ knowledge of using a CMS is never a detriment, knowledge of coding in one is sometimes an asset. What would seem as cheating , would be pre-made template design ( think about itā¦ hire a web designer who bought his website design?) On the coding endā¦ many clients want their work done in standard CMSā¦ Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress?!? As far as coding or skinning , that could be an advantageā¦ I warn you thoā¦ it will NOT be any faster than hand coding, if you donāt already know how to code for the cms, and handle itās dashboard for data entry.
I personally donāt agree that using a pre-made template is ācheatingā IF you significantly modify and improve the design of the template. A template can be seen as a nice skeleton for a site with certain aspects of the html, css, javascript/jquery and php code already taken care of. A designer can then rework this skeleton to create a far more aesthetically interesting and appealing site.
There are other advantages - one of which is that you can actually charge your client less and produce the site quicker while still producing a high quality product. Of course, just like you need to find the right CMS you also need to find the right templates, but as a concept I think in general it is a better way to build websites.
So far, of the CMSs that Iāve used, I prefer Expression Engine. Its extremely flexible and has a great community and support surrounding it.
Iāve used Joomla, Mambo, Wordpress, Drupal, and a few others as well, but EE is my CMS of choice. Its beautifully crafted and where the other CMSs fail, EE shines.
I find the other CMSs hard to sometimes to get it to bend to make it do what you want it to doā¦NOT EE, its extremely flexible and if you can code HTML/CSS ā you will love it.
It does have a small price tag, but its worth it.
I havenāt seen anything EE could do that Drupal couldnāt do better and for free. Also you arenāt slapped with restrictions on using it commercially or not. EE makes you shell out even more money if you want a commercial license and you have to pay for something that is basic for any free cms such as the ability to have multi-site capabilities and even the forum module. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.
I would hand code it yourself, that way you know everything regarding the site.
The choice is yours.If you have time in your hand then you can go for coding.Its a time taking process.Now a days lots of CMS like Magento and Joomla are available i the market which made the web design very easy and time saving.Within few hours you can get your site ready.They are open source. So you can also down load any module when ever required from the Internet.They are free.We are working on both Magento and Joomla.So, I really enjoy by working with it.