[homosaur]

I'd actually rather see a hardcore nice CMS in something like Laravel, which is fairly similar to Rails. I don't think Rails is a non-starter but I'd like to see something that's LAMP friendly due to the ease and availability to beginners, students, and the generally broke.

[jarrett]

I certainly considered PHP, but PHP is a worse-is-better compromise. I want a CMS where I don't feel like I'm accepting inferior tools just to support legacy hosting stacks. We already have plenty of PHP CMSs for that purpose. I'd rather meet an unmet need.

The choice of language in particular is a place where I don't want to compromise, because it's such a fundamental component, and it sets the tone for everything else. It's not just the language itself, but the community you're importing when you choose a language. There are plenty of good programmers using PHP, but the language also attracts a high percentage of the clueless. (If you're reading this and you code PHP, chances are you're in the first camp, so this isn't a stab against you.)