Sign up design

Hey, I wanted to ask about a post I saw on think vitamin. I quote below:

Let’s look at an example. I’m building an authentication system for a client. The client wants:

* A regular, SSL encrypted username and password login.
* A sign-up system.
* Email based verification for sign-up.
* A forgotten password recovery tool.

The client knows that they want these things, but they do not necessarily know the amount of time it will take to develop and test. How do you keep the client updated with your journey to completion effectively and simply?

Although, I understand this is a frequently requested feature in websites, why would someone program it and avoid using an already designed system from a CMS? Thanks very much for any answers to this newbie question.

This is a big debate in the Web development community. You can read this thread for more info. Some projects aren’t going to work well with a pre-existing CMS.