RAMPAGE CMS is a website creation and content management software. Work on the program began in 2005. Then the system was repeatedly changed and refined to meet the needs and requirenments of customers. By 2009, several dozen sites had been created and powered by the system. In 2010, was made an attempt to rewrite the system, but the work turned out to be unclaimed and was stopped. The program was abandoned for a long twelve years..

 

In 2022, a file archive containing the CMS source code was found in the depths of the hard drive. The archive did not contain a database dump, but I managed to recreate the structure and the system started. It was like a journey into the past or an archaeological excavation. But the more and more I was digging I kept feeling the desire to restore, revive the program, give it a second life. So I decided to quickly clean up the code, fix some bugs and then put it all into the light of day. But as you may know, it never goes quickly..

 

The system began to be developed in 2005 on PHP 4, then the transition to PHP 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 was made. Different parts of the system were from different eras. Libraries referenced repositories that no longer exist. And IE 6 support was the cornerstone of the user interface. So it was simply impossible to release the code in 2022, even as a museum piece...

 

Throughout 2022, work has been going on to bring the system to a more or less homogeneous state. The development environment has been created in docker. All libraries have been updated to the latest versions ten years ago. Internet explorer support has been removed, and webkit support has been completed. But most importantly, the entire software architecture, all modules and components, classes and libraries, all were impaled on a single, relatively rigid, architectural core...

 

Of course, many compromises had to be made in the development process. Modern browsers have required some changes to the user interface. Not all features were transferred, some components were completely rewriteen. To keep as much old code as possible, architectural principles had to be sacrificed. But in the end, the job was done...

 

As a result, after 18 years, the content management system code received its first public release. It is not a museum exhibit anymore, since it was seriously rewritten. It is quite possible to make websites, but what for? It doesn't make much sense to use it for learning either. But, wouldn't it be better if the program code once written remained somewhere in the depths of the hard drive? I don't think so. So let it live on the Internet, the one and only, among hundreds of others like it.