Learning about SQL, PHP, etc

[AlphaTrinity]

Hey guys,
A good friend of mine and I are going to attempt to make a website that is going to be pretty complicated for us (me being mostly a hardware/networking guy, and him claiming to be "an old school text programmer) to get started.
He's doing most of the research, while I volunteered to find tutorials and examples about whatever he thinks would be good for programming this site.
At first he mentioned using PHP, but now he has moved more towards using SQL to make this site. I saw that Keebler and some others posted a lot of tutorial sites and books, and I'm going to check them out as soon as I'm done posting this thread.
My question is: what software do I need in order to write SQL or PHP scripts? I saw that Microsoft has something called SQL Server 2005 that uses T-SQL. Would that be a good software for us to start with? We would definitely prefer freeware, but if it comes down to it I suppose we could buy software that we might need. He will be running Vista while I'm still running XP. I also have a linux box that I could use if there are better options on that (Fedora 6 I believe).
Thanks so much for the help :)

[JB]

Not to rain on your parade, but designing an entire website is a big undertaking. Have you look at available content management systems? This problem has been solved many times before so you can concentrate on your content rather than the technology.

[Thrax]

PHP is a programming-language that intermingles with HTML, Javascript, or any other of the traditional web languages. It is a web language in its own right, and is dynamic. That means the site can be changed <i>from</i> the site, whereas HTML is static, which means you get what you code and nothing more. In order to by dynamic, PHP relies on an SQL database to store values. It is easiest to use MySQL for Windows/Linux, or some people prefer PostgreSQL.

Either way, you're in for a very mammoth undertaking to learn the language. You'll be learning not only how to write it, but how to write it <i>well</i> which is just as important. In the interim, you'll also be learning the finer points of HTML and how to design an efficient SQL database.

Are you sure you wouldn't want a pre-fabricated content management system (CMS)? Radeon_Man is right. Most people who want to undertake this don't quite understand the scope of the task.

[AlphaTrinity]

Heh..I knew the project would be big, but I didn't realize it would be scary big like you two are making it out to be.
Sure we'll give CMS a try if you both recommend it. But since I have no idea what exactly CMS is (software?) maybe you guys could recommend something.
And about being a mammoth undertaking..we both have plenty of time to dedicate to this (me having probably more than twice the amount of time as my partner), so we're prepared to tackle it I think. :)

[JB]

And about being a mammoth undertaking..we both have plenty of time to dedicate to this (me having probably more than twice the amount of time as my partner), so we're prepared to tackle it I think. :)

Which I would recommend spending on content, not technical issues :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems for a bunch of CMS systems. I played around with e107 a few years ago, but I have limited CMS experience. I will let others chime in recommendations.

[kryyst]

Instead of telling us how you want to code the site, tell us what you want the site to do and we can probably recommend some packages. Plus you've got basic considerations as well, like where are you going to host the site. If it's apache on a linux box then that comes with it's own limitations. If it's IIS on a winbox then you have other considerations and options like .NET and ASP.

[primesuspect]

CMS' that I've personally used:

Subdreamer
Wordpress
e107
Mambo
Joomla

Of those, wordpress is by far the easiest to set up and have a workable site up and running in a short amount of time.

[Clutch]

Learning PHP 5, published by O'riely (spellcheck) is a decent beginner book. Also check out the tutorials on www.tizag.com they are pretty good. I use EditPlus to code my php, it's a very good text editor. PHP is not a joke, there is a lot to learn with it, I mean you are learning a programming language, which is never easy. I just picked up learning PHP about a month ago and I'm learning new things everyday.

[lightnin]

if you wanna learn a framework that's a bit easier than what's commonly referred to as a XAMP stack (os, apache, mysql, php)

look into Ruby on Rails

I find that learning about different web technologies is half the fun.

http://www.rubyonrails.org/

check out some of the screencasts to see what you can do. You can build your own ideas, ground up, and it *may* be a little less complex than php.

Good luck

[Thrax]

Ruby is definitely less complicated than PHP. I was into learning a web language for work, and after observing the speed, versatility and design of Ruby compared to PHP, I'm in it for the long haul with RoR.

[AlphaTrinity]

Thanks for all of the info guys :) I really appreciate it
I've been busy the last couple of days, but today I have some free time and I'm going to start working on tutorials.

[Clutch]

Check out different ones. I have found that some tutorials I pick up on easier just by the examples and writing style of the author. So I switch around from two different books, and different online sites. Have fun with it.