[CDM]

My parents have given me a little project to work on, actually it's probably a big project, but i'm not quite sure how to go about doing it and what the best way, and tools to use to accomplish my mission.

Here the project: I need to desing a website. The website should have a few pages, on one of the pages the user/customer needs to be able to enter his/her information and place an order (just one order, shopping cart is not necessary at the moment). I then need to store the information in a database. Orders from the database would need to be printed, or possible sent somewhere via email. User/customer should be able to create accounts and reorder if they like, and possible view some sort of order history if posible, although not necessary at the moment. Database needs to be accessed preferably from a gui interface (my parents aren't that computer savy).

That is the bulk of it, I can explain more as replys come in.

My experience consists of some html and javascript, as well as some java and C. I've never used php, perl, mysql, or asp but i'm willing to learn.

Also would it be easier to host the site myself, or have a company host it for me.

Any help/advice would be great, I now it's a big question(s) but any info you guys could give me would be awesome, thanks

David

[dogzilla]

Wow. That does sound like a big job. Quickly, here are my recommendations:

1) See if you can get DSL and host the site yourself. It gives you *way* more flexibility, and it will give you invaluable experience in Unix admin and development (which will make you more valuable to potential employers and a better web designer as well). Don't forget security - FreeBSD.org has some excellent instructions on how to (try to) secure your server.

2) Use a Unix-based server (FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD or MacOSX). Don't use Linux - every script kiddie in the world uses Linux and it's not as easy to secure as the BSDs. FreeBSD is my first choice, but it doesn't run on Mac hardware. OSX (Darwin, really) is a close second, although there's some issues with compiling some software addons for Apache.

3) Use Apache/PHP/MySQL. This is the best combination I've found for small/medium web sites. There is a *huge* amount of information available on the web supporting this software. And it's all free (as in beer and speech).

4) Get some books on these and on web design. Try David Siegel and Jeffrey Veen for design/strategy, Leon Atkinson for PHP, and O'Reilly and "For Dummies" (really!) for Apache/Unix. And the "FreeBSD Handbook" is pretty useful too.

Good luck.

[ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: dogzilla ]

[dogzilla]

double post

[ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: dogzilla ]

[Raman]

Originally posted by dogzilla:
<STRONG>Wow. That does sound like a big job. Quickly, here are my recommendations:</STRONG>

O.K. Just to play devils advocate (and because dogzilla's kid is so damn cute) I'm going to totally disagree on everything dogzilla has said regarding some things.

Why? Because it is good to learn everything that he's said but I don't think you should learn everything you need doing a website. A website which needs to be a part of someone's income. There's too much to learn right now before you put up the site. Security is the most important thing.

DSL companies will make you pay more if you want a fixed IP address and use the connection for business purposes. It's more than you might want to pay to host 1 website (that might not pay you to do it) so if you're going to go thru the expense of getting your own IP address you might want to start a hosting company so you can recoup those losses.

Hosting the site and hardware is much more flexible but you need to know what you're doing or you'll get hacked and not even know it.

There is a mountain of information on JSP, PHP, ASP, MySQL, SQL server, Oracle, etc.. and it's all free (or a couple of hours at Barnes and Noble). Lack of knowledge is not an excuse. If you want GOOD websites for any/all those topics I'll be happy to provide.

1. Pay a company to host the website. Tell them your requirements (server-side scripting like ASP or PHP, JSP, etc, database accessibility, and SSL.

2. If you really have a working knowledge of Java then you might try JSP or PHP as they smell like Java (as opposed to VBScript in ASP which looks nothing like C style syntax - you could, however code all your ASP in JScript instead of VBScript).

3. Unix based servers are more reliable and available than NT (trust me, I know). That means you probably won't be doing ASP.

4. Your website is as good as it looks. Doesn't sound right, right? Well I've re-built/re-designed/re-purposed many websites which initially looked like an amateur did it. If they want to do business on the website, it has to look good. Think of your own experiences. I liked "Web Design - the Complete Reference."

From an experienced developer/designer's standpoint, what you want is very easy as long as you plan everything on paper BEFORE you put your hand on the keyboard. If you realize the work is above your head then do yourself a favor and get help from a professional developer &lt;shameless plug&gt;like me - coastaldev.com&lt;/shameless plug&gt;!

[funkboy]

double post, remove

[ 07-05-2001: Message edited by: funkboy ]

[funkboy]

I would have to agree with Raman in saying "Don't host the site yourself!" If you're mostly concerned with getting the site up and running quickly, let someone else figure out bandwidth, hardware, and other server-related problems. Don't worry yourself with all of this - and if this is your first time, it *will* be a worry!

I'm quite fond of PHP, but I didn't learn strictly from online, free resources. If you can read for extended periods of time on lots of ad-cluttered web development websites on PHP-related articles, go for it - I needed a book.

I got Wrox's Professional PHP Programming and find it to cover all sorts of topics, from MySQL to PHP basics, to advanced functions of the code ... overall, a really great reference. A peek at some of the chapter's titles: Statements, Functions, Arrays, OOP, SQL Databases, LDAP, XML, Image generation and manipulation, Cookies, sending and receiving e-mail, security... there's even a "Shopping Cart Application" with source code you can download from their website.

Ick, this sounds like an ad for the book... anyhow, think about doing a little PHP (very similar in syntax to C and Java) and letting someone else take care of server worries.
(ah, one server I wanted to mention was Tera-Byte, a hosting company that gives you PHP, SQL, 99MB space for about $9.25/month. Seems like a great deal.)