My forum aspiration

[Norman]

Hi, I want to do something like a money system in my vBulletin forum.. something like on GaiaOnline.com. But, right now I have no skills on PHP, so I would like to know how many time and 'skill' should I spend/have before I can try to do something like that. I would like also to integrate my forum with my site. So, for example, connecting the forums informations (money amout per user) on a bank on my site, on a marketplace, etc. What do you think? Is this a step that a webdeveloper obtain after a lot of years of web programming, or something more 'fast/simple'? And.. mhh, do you have some advice for me about this? If yes, please post them!

[Skemcin]

You'll know when your ready.As far as getting to that point - the amount of time is up to you. you can gradually learn PHP, ASP, or ColdFusion to the point where you are comfortable with the idea or you can simply apply yourself to a deadline and force the situation.Taking your time is often the better and more favorable path since forcing it can often lead to short cuts or simply poor, vulnerable coding practices.So, find and do a few smaller sites, ones that you can apply what you have learned and maybe expand on new things little by little. If one of the first four or five sites you do deals with financial transactions that you are solely responsible for managing, you are either incredibly talented or a very risky person - you do not want to screw with people's money.

[aspnetguy]

integrating and building modules for existing software takes more than just good programming skills. You have to study the system and understand it inside and out in order to make things work without conflicts.