Member Avatar for OMG_1

Hi,

I am a legacay (cobol) developer and wants to learn how to build websites. For this I decided to do a little project for myself.

The site would be a places/travel tracker kind. It would show a certain map (ex, London, Taiwan, Greenland). Then you can click on a city on the map which will show pictures/videos/comments of you in that city. Map changes color for the city you have visited or maybe a pin.

I have search the web and mostly there are world tracker. I would want a country based one.

So my questions are:

1.) What are the web development tools I should learn/use to be able to achieve this? (GUI, Modules, Database, etc...)
2.) Do my initial project is a bit for a beginner complex? Can you suggest how should I break it down to smaller bits?
3.) Lastly, please suggest a place where I can practice/learn the tools that will be mentioned in the first item.

Thanks in advance.
OldManGaming

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Member Avatar for rproffitt

I think this isn't a bad question or topic but it's like you asked for everything. That might get you a very unclear answer.

So there are so many choices to make today that I hesitate to tell you any specific tool since nothing would do this on the first outing. And what you ultimately choose may depend on your web hosting choice.

Why not start off slowly? That is, get a web server up (this alone might take you a few months) and then make a page with a map on it. At that point you might have a way to assess how many years you have to put into this.

Member Avatar for overwraith

At the very least you will need to research the technologies you will be utilizing for locational data. For sql server this will be the spatial functionality, for postgre sql you would use postgis, or perhaps something else, I have only heard about postgis, there could be other technologies. Oracle db also has some spatial stuff. If you have an ORM, (not likely since this is PHP) you will need to learn the techniques to interact with locational data. I believe bing maps has something to do with displaying your locational data for sql server. Postgre sql from what I understand is an open source database. I am currently reading "Pro Spatial with SQL Server 2012" by apress. I will probably have to learn about NHibernate Spatial since NHibernate is part of my keychain, but not yours (C# for me PHP for you). I would read a spatial book before endeavouring to do what you want to do.

Member Avatar for OMG_1

Hi all,

It seems that I do really make the question too general. I would take rproffit suggestion and just create a website with a map page. Then see where it goes.

Thanks a lot and hopong for your help again in this little project of mine.

Regards,
OldManGaming

Member Avatar for pty

I think that spatial functionality probably isn't really required for this, you only need to store coordinates for points (of interest) and a city key in that table, unless you want really fancy functionality like clicking a city will automatically query for any POI within 20km. To start with, an X and Y numeric field is enough.

For displaying maps on the page you're probably best looking into LeafletJS.

I wouldn't worry too much about backend databases to start with, I'd begin by hardcoding a JSON file with the data you need in it, and when you're ready and happy with the structure, content and sections of the app, you can replace it with an API.

Edited by pty
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