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I'd like to start a forum, but need some direction. Okay, I know x/html, css, javascript and am learning xml and would like to start a forum focusing on these languages. I don't know php. Some questions I have are: Should Ilearn php and then try to set up a forum from scratch myself?hire someone to set up the forum and learn php as I go?use the ready made template provided by a free forum software company such as simplemachines.org or phpbb.com?Any of your opinions/thoughts are appreciated.Thanks

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learn php and then try to set up a forum from scratch myself?
... if you have free time
hire someone to set up the forum and learn php as I go?
... if you have free money
use the ready made template provided by a free forum software company such as simplemachines.org or phpbb.com?
... if you need it urgently :)
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If you have the time try building the forum yourself with php and mysql, since it's for personal use then this would give you an excellent opportunity to gain invaluable experience :)

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Thanks. Since I have the time and not much money, I'll learn and php and ?mysql? I think I know mysql/sql has something to do with databases, how exactly will that help me? and what's the difference between mysql and sql?I'll do search and find out. Just thought I'd ask first thoughThanks

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Databases provide the ability to place different content on many pages and relate it to different other datas. The easiest way to illustrate this is MS Acces. If you could give it a try, you'll easily figure out the usefullness of data relationships.Example:An employee list. In one table you have their UIN (Unique Identification Number) and three fields for their three names. In a second table you have multiple phone numbers. Few of them however, may refer to a single employee (for example: home phone and cell phone). In order to make the connection, you would write their UIN in the table with the phones too by writing the UIN to each phone number. From there on, you may define a query to get all the numbers for a certain NAME and that name will show the numbers by using the predefined UIN connection.The explanation above is about relational type databases. Both MS Access and MySQL are such types of databases.And here comes the other explanation.-SQL is a language for querying data in databases.-MySQL is a database... um... platform... which stores data in relational type databases and uses the SQL language for querying them.You need PHP in order to actually connect to MySQL on the first place. There are premade applications for filling manually the data such as PHPMyAdmin, but that's another thing.So the "big deal" is that you use PHP to place the data, manipulate forms, etc. or in short: functionality. And you use MySQL for data storage, so it's always avaiable everywhere.[edit]@Little Goat MSSQL is just another database platform made by Microsoft. You may say it's actually Microsoft's equivalent to MySQL. [/edit]

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how exactly will that help me?

You need somewhere to store all the information (like these posts)When you started this topic where do you think all the text you typed in goes :) It gets saved into a database then when you click on the topic to view it, it gets extracted and displayed on the page using php and sql commands, so a database is required. You cant build a forum without having some sort of database retaining the information. :)oh yeahsql = the language for talking to databases ie SELECT * FROM somethingmysql = It's a database, like microsoft access for example.
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Thanks for all the help. I"m really gratefull. btw, I'm gonna learn php (I've already started learning php5 with the help of one those "Visual" books) and mysql, really learn x/html, javascript, css and xml and start the forum.Again, Thanks

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