"what Do I Need To Learn In Order To Do This" Topic

[Guest Werdna]

Hey I'm pretty new to a lot of things. Let's just say I know next to nothing outside of what I learned in high school. My brother wants me to make him a website, and I figure I'll use the creation of it as a 'learn as i go' kind of thing because this is something I'm interested in. Also I want to learn this stuff so I can make my band a website (which I assume will be much simpler than this project).So just let me know what programs I'll need, and what languages and such I'll need to get familiar with. Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is long.So here's the "things he wants" list.Well...in summary it's kind of a 'what's going on' website for our area...telling about bars and events and stuff for the week/weekend, stuff like that...so some of these things will be obvious.- A way for visitors to rate and review each bar/venue.- I want the bars/venues to be searchable/filterable (with things such as "happy hour" "live music" etc- A map with pinpoints that you can click on to filter by area, or to just click on the pinpoint and look at the place (it's a big city, so it's not as excessive as it sounds)- Incorporate google maps in some way to give the 'street view' of the place as well as the overhead view (so people can find places better, and of course see what they look like)- I'm guessing I'd have to have some kind of database going on for the search functions to work, and also it would be helpful just to organize things. So if you can, let me know how to incorporate/maintain a databaseI'm not asking for step-by-step instructions, because that would be ridiculous. I just want to know what I'll have to learn to make this happen, and what the best tools/applications/programs/whatever are to use to make this.I have a little bit of dreamweaver experience and some EXTREMELY basic programming experience.I'm willing to learn this stuff, but an estimate on how difficult this is going to be would be nice.Thanks a lot, and sorry for the big request.

[justsomeguy]

There are several ways to go with that if you're just starting out. One way is the traditional way, where you would need to learn HTML to set up your page structure, and CSS to do the styling and formatting, then use a server-side language like PHP to do all of the processing and database work, and maybe a little Javascript to make the interface more user-friendly. Frankly, it's going to take a lot of work to make all of those features. There's not really a single tutorial to help with something like that, you need to learn how to use the different languages, each is for a specific part, and then the processing side basically involves using PHP to work with the data going in and out of your database, which will probably be a MySQL database. Once you have the database designed, each PHP page is really either updating the database or reading from it, that's about all there is to it on the basic level. There's a lot to learn about software design, which you can try to learn before starting but really need experience to know what works and what doesn't. There are several online tutorials to learn the different parts, but it also helps to read some books about the more broad topics. PHP in particular will take a while for a new person to understand well. There are several good books from O'Reilly:http://oreilly.com/pub/topic/php?page=bestsellingI know these two are good:http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596006815/http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596005436/The head first book is probably good, I haven't read it but apparently it's the best seller. Look through the other categories on the O'Reilly site, they have some good database theory books and stuff on software engineering and web applications in general.As far as software goes, for developing anything I've mentioned you can either download the individual components to set up a test server for yourself, or get hosting space online and do your development there. If you want to set up your own testing server, the first thing you'll need is a web server. Windows has the IIS server included in XP Pro or some versions of Vista, which you can install from the Windows CD, or you can download the Apache server, which you're more likely to find on hosted servers online. In addition to Apache or IIS you'll need to download and install the PHP software to work on the web server to run your PHP code, and the MySQL database to use with PHP. It also helps to download and install phpMyAdmin to give you a better interface to manage your databases. An online host would have all of this available when you get a hosting account set up. There are several Windows packages that include everything, such as WAMP and XAMPP, or you can download the components individually and install them yourself. Everything is free, other than a good hosting account, which you'll need eventually to put the site online. You won't be able to run a site like that the way you want on a free hosting account. For the maps, you can use the Google APIs to do both of those on the same map, for that you'll need to create a Google account if you don't already have one and then go here to read about how to set it up:http://code.google.com/apis/maps/

[bigsilk]

Hey I'm pretty new to a lot of things. Let's just say I know next to nothing outside of what I learned in high school. My brother wants me to make him a website, and I figure I'll use the creation of it as a 'learn as i go' kind of thing because this is something I'm interested in. Also I want to learn this stuff so I can make my band a website (which I assume will be much simpler than this project).So just let me know what programs I'll need, and what languages and such I'll need to get familiar with. Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is long.So here's the "things he wants" list.Well...in summary it's kind of a 'what's going on' website for our area...telling about bars and events and stuff for the week/weekend, stuff like that...so some of these things will be obvious.- A way for visitors to rate and review each bar/venue.- I want the bars/venues to be searchable/filterable (with things such as "happy hour" "live music" etc- A map with pinpoints that you can click on to filter by area, or to just click on the pinpoint and look at the place (it's a big city, so it's not as excessive as it sounds)- Incorporate google maps in some way to give the 'street view' of the place as well as the overhead view (so people can find places better, and of course see what they look like)- I'm guessing I'd have to have some kind of database going on for the search functions to work, and also it would be helpful just to organize things. So if you can, let me know how to incorporate/maintain a databaseI'm not asking for step-by-step instructions, because that would be ridiculous. I just want to know what I'll have to learn to make this happen, and what the best tools/applications/programs/whatever are to use to make this.I have a little bit of dreamweaver experience and some EXTREMELY basic programming experience.I'm willing to learn this stuff, but an estimate on how difficult this is going to be would be nice.Thanks a lot, and sorry for the big request.

Honestly, check out some classes at a community college or extension courses at a local university. You're trying to take a big bite out of something you'll never learn to eat without some school.