Agree with what Datschge wrote. While using an existing CMS may get you up and running faster I've found I usually regret the decision as it eventually gets in the way. You spend more time trying to bend it to your will instead of coding your features. Unfortunately by the time I realize this my project has become so tightly coupled to the CMS that I just start over. Maybe I just suck at webdev
I prefer coding in Python. You might be interested in Django, Zope, or Pylons as web frameworks.