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Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

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gnarly

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Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 21st, 2009

Hi, I'm Wyatt, and this is my first post!

So I have an idea for a website. I'm decent at C++ and I only know some basic html. Now I want to pick up a new language to code my site. As I googled the functions I needed, PHP came up the most (probably because it's the most popular).

I could get by with a basic layout of text, links, and pictures, but I'd like to be able to pull data from (but text search would be splendid). In addition, user comments or message boards would also be great.

I'd also like to implement Adsense (or yahoo! or ???) to hopefully make some money.

I'll probably start out simple, but if I'd love to have expandability, such as adding new data to plotted graphs in real time, slick ways of zooming in on photos, and anything to enhance usability.

This is probably too ambitious for my first project, in high school I used FrontPage to do everything for me, but I'd like to know if PHP is a good choice. If not, what is? And do you have any general tutorials, beginner guides that come highly recommended?

In a week, I don't want to be deterred by a difficult learning curve, and in a year I don't want to be wishing I used Javascript or AJAX.

Sorry if I don't make sense or broke the rules.

Thanks,

Wyatt

Last edited by gnarly; Jul 21st, 2009 at 3:03 am.

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new_divine new_divine is offline

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 21st, 2009

i would suggest you to move to dreamweaver from frontpage coz its far more better and user friendly and has more tools for making a complete wesite and as a reference to php following lonk to a php tutorial will be helpful and if you still have some problems i could provide you with the php manual. and if you have good sense of c or c++ then php will be far more easier to you.

http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 21st, 2009

PHP can do nearly anything you want it to do so you won’t be sorry you chose PHP. I am only new to the language, and to Programming in general.

From what I have seen and heard using HTML, PHP and AJAX is quite a powerful combination so if you learn those you should be ok.

I definitely recommend sticking around here in this forum. The community support is great. I have had really great help here.

I would also recommend Dreamweaver if you are going to use an IDE, I am using CS3 and it has great syntax highlighting and other features for HTML as well.

Good Luck

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 21st, 2009

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Originally Posted by new_divine

i would suggest you to move to dreamweaver from frontpage coz its far more better and user friendly and has more tools for making a complete wesite and as a reference to php following lonk to a php tutorial will be helpful and if you still have some problems i could provide you with the php manual. and if you have good sense of c or c++ then php will be far more easier to you.

http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp

This is a fantastic site, i learned a lot from this one

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 21st, 2009

If hosting is not a problem, maybe asp.net/C# would be a good choice. Since you already know C++, programming the backend should be a snap. Downside is that hosting is often more expensive, and a bit more complicated than with PHP. But it is also easily integrated with silverlight, for making stunning visual effects.

Don't get me wrong, I love PHP, using it since V3 and still using it for my own sites and absolutely loving it. At work I have to use asp.net/c# and it is very solid.

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 21st, 2009

php + js (inc ajax) with a healthy dose of xhtml/css are pretty much all you need to build almost everything. Oh - almost forgot mysql.

BTW:
Most seasoned programmers here will scoff at Dreamweaver, but truth be said, it is very good when you're starting out as it deals reasonably well with all the main languages, including syntax highlighting and prompting. Notepad++ and a few other text editors do the same. Aptana is a good all-rounder (IDE). However, for setting up a new local site/sorting our remote FTPs etc etc, Dreamweaver is probably the easiest program to use - although v. v. pricey. Perhaps you could get a cheap 2004MX version. I still use it from time to time. It pretty much does what it says on the tin.

Last edited by ardav; Jul 21st, 2009 at 7:20 am.

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 22nd, 2009

Thank you for all of the helpful responses.

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

Jul 23rd, 2009

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Originally Posted by gnarly

Thank you for all of the helpful responses.

If this topic is solved then please click the solved link to mark it solved but just to add my opinion, if you know c++ then you should be able to make php extensions that can do things which are presently impossible. One of the things I do know is impossible to currently do with php that I'm trying to make a php extension for is a video and audio library. But for some reason php doesn't like my dll's. Just a thing to keep in mind when you know both php and c++.

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

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Jul 23rd, 2009

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ne of the things I do know is impossible to currently do with php that I'm trying to make a php extension for is a video and audio library

There is one already

http://ffmpeg-php.sourceforge.net/

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If hosting is not a problem, maybe asp.net/C# would be a good choice. Since you already know C++, programming the backend should be a snap. Downside is that hosting is often more expensive, and a bit more complicated than with PHP. But it is also easily integrated with silverlight, for making stunning visual effects.

C#.NET is really quite a different animal from c++....

But i must admit that Visual Studio / Web Developer Express is an amazing piece of kit for developing dynamic sites with. Only thinbg you got to watch out for is the cost of hosting and version. Apps targeted at a newer version of .NET (e.g created with a newer version of visual studio) wont work on servers which use older versions (many companies still offer only asp.net 1.1 which is poor, and not the default in vs2005 and above)

Last edited by jbennet; Jul 23rd, 2009 at 1:37 am.

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Re: Is PHP the right for these specific needs?

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Jul 23rd, 2009

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Originally Posted by ardav

php + js (inc ajax) with a healthy dose of xhtml/css are pretty much all you need to build almost everything. Oh - almost forgot mysql.

BTW:
Aptana is a good all-rounder (IDE). However, for setting up a new local site/sorting our remote FTPs etc etc, Dreamweaver is probably the easiest program to use - although v. v. pricey. Perhaps you could get a cheap 2004MX version.

I agree totally, Aptana is a great web programming IDE. I'm using it curretly, previously I used PHPEclipse. PHPEclipse is also great, as Aptana and PHPEclipse is using Eclipse IDE as their core, you'll get great features of Eclipse. But Aptana comes with great features for JS and CSS. Personally I think Dreamweaver is no way a good php IDE. It's good as WYSIWYG HTML editor. Though I haven't used CS3/CS4 version. When you have firefox with firebug and Aptana/PHPEclipse, for what's on earth do you need Dreamweaver?

And learning php is the easiest thing in this world. It's even easier than learning to eat

. Don't be surprised if you come-up with a CMS soon after learning php. But of-course it has huge library, so knowing all of them would be very close to impossible (atleast for me). But you'll get number of reference books all over the bookstores and internet.