I have a client who wants a review style website similar to yelp. The two main functions will be registered users ability to write reviews of included and suggested vendors AND for vendors to create customized pages for their services.

I am in the process of learning php. I have a few months before the site would need to be coded and was wondering, in your opinion, if my time would spent more wisely on understanding Drupal CMS (in particular Aquia Drupal http://acquia.com/) or continuing my goal to do this from scratch in php. (I do hand code so I am familiar with the xhtml and css end of site development.)

I do intend to use pre-made scripts when possible and pay a php expert to check my final design for security flaws, etc.

What is a php programmers view of open source CMS systems?
Any advice would be appreciated!

Well, First thing is first, Your skill levels should dictate on what jobs you accept from clients. Second, Almost 75% of your code should not be from scratch, I go on a if it isn't out there 100% or 90% or better to tweak to work then make it. Also If you make a site Like of which your client wants, try and find a pre-built php framework, Alot of people will say don't, I go on why not? if you understand php enough to work with it and know how it is put together then go a head and use it. I use codeigniter, mainly because it has a lot of features in it to build a content rich website very easily.

pay a php expert to check my final design for security flaws, etc.

No one is never an expert in my mind, You will always gain more knowledge, staying ahead is key. You may be 10 steps ahead of me, but I will know what you know and you will know more type deal. For security flaws, honestly it is a never ending battle you will always find some thing here and there of which is a security flaw and needs to be fixed. I have yet to see 1 Program that has NO flaws in it.

Another thing to think of is, Either way your going to have to teach your client how to run the site after you are done with it, and if you decide to go with drupal you may have to theme it as well.

Okay sorry about that whole long speech crap. I paid to much attention in programing class today.

My guess would be to try drupal or what you are looking at directly, try it for 3 days, If you cant figure out what you want it to do then either look it up (within the 3 days of course), or take bits and pieces of code and put it together and make your own.

Thank you very much for the response. BTW - I don't mind "speeches", I'm here to learn. Trust me when I say that the very first thing I told this client was that a site like that was out of my range of programming knowledge. I had NO intentions of taking on any type of site requiring php until I had substantial knowledge. For some reason, however, the client still really wants me to still make the site any way possible.(I guess that's a good thing?)

After a long research process, I have decided to give this Aquia Drupal a shot.(And also with your advice, thank you). The difference with the Aquia version is you can subscribe for a service so that after your site is live and it is constantly linked(monitored) to their admin service which alerts you to security warnings, new versions of modules being used, etc. You have to pay for this service, but it seems to be worth it as of now.

I have it all installed locally and will be playing around the next several days. This should work well for my client to admin, etc. (I will also be helping with ongoing admin).

Thank you very much for your detailed reply.

No problem, We all continue to learn.

If you can get Aquia Drupal to do what you want it to do then that is your best option, and if you need to pay for it, be it one time, weekly, monthly, yearly, etc... let your client know. As I am sure that if you need to pay x a month then you really don't want to be paying this for your client unless you have an ongoing contract with them to pay you x a month for your admin services.