The Energon Pub

Hi, I happen to have a lot of spare time now and so I thought I could learn how to program a websites, I can do html but I want to use something more modern and dynamic.

I would like to, just for the hell of it, learn to program a website with forum, news and how to integrate games into it.

Just so I can understand how websites like this one work and to pass some time.

so do you know of any good forum software and languages needed to make such a website and were I could learn it for free?

Thanks.

Dead Metal wrote:so do you know of any good forum software and languages needed to make such a website and were I could learn it for free?

I use PHP. You can learn it for free at PHP.net, or you can just check out Google for some sites. Or check the library for a book on it.

For forum software, this site uses phpBB, which seems to be the most popular choice. It works out well. And, as the name suggests, it's built with PHP.

The main languages you'd probably want to learn for general Web programming are ASP (for hosting on Microsoft servers) or PHP (for the majority of the Web). There are other options, but they mainly revolve around more specialised applications and/or have a steeper setup and learning curve.

Personally I'd recommend PHP as it's not too complex and you can embed it directly in your pages as long as your host supports it - which it almost certainly will, unless you're using some random ad-supported 'free' hosting provider. It also uses broadly C-style syntax, which will make it easier to move on to other languages if you're interested in doing that (ASP and other languages in the Visual Basic family, by contrast, will teach you bad habits IMO).


As you're talking about setting up a general-purpose modular website, you may also want to look into a PHP-based content management system such as the perennial phpNuke rather than trying to code an entire system from scratch as a 'learning experience'. Most hosts will provide something like this - often a choice of systems! - though some may charge a small fee to set it up for you.

Thanks guys, I almost gave up on this thread.

I'll check that stuff out, so I can just make a complete website out of php? I used to think that php is used only for forums.

Dead Metal wrote:I'll check that stuff out, so I can just make a complete website out of php? I used to think that php is used only for forums.

I agree with Glyph. If given a choice, I always always go with PHP over ASP. A million times easier to use and learn, friendlier, won't fight with you, converts data types for you.... It's just easier and better in almost every way. I say "almost" because I'm aware there's a possibility that ASP might do something better than PHP... but I haven't found it yet.

And, yeah, you can use PHP for your entire site, though I'd stick with using PHP only for those parts you need done on the fly. If you have a static page or a static part in a page, just code it straight in HTML. Makes loading faster. I made the mistake of making a site 100% in PHP, not knowing that it would be better to just go into PHP when you need it and getting back out when you're done. If you want, compare load times between this page (my site in question, and no I'm not using this as free publicity as I'm not really active on it anymore) and Seibertron or some other PHP site. Seibertron probably loads faster, and if it doesn't, it's probably because the Seibertron site has more to process.

Me, Grimlock! wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:I'll check that stuff out, so I can just make a complete website out of php? I used to think that php is used only for forums.

I agree with Glyph. If given a choice, I always always go with PHP over ASP. A million times easier to use and learn, friendlier, won't fight with you, converts data types for you.... It's just easier and better in almost every way. I say "almost" because I'm aware there's a possibility that ASP might do something better than PHP... but I haven't found it yet.

And, yeah, you can use PHP for your entire site, though I'd stick with using PHP only for those parts you need done on the fly. If you have a static page or a static part in a page, just code it straight in HTML. Makes loading faster. I made the mistake of making a site 100% in PHP, not knowing that it would be better to just go into PHP when you need it and getting back out when you're done. If you want, compare load times between this page (my site in question, and no I'm not using this as free publicity as I'm not really active on it anymore) and Seibertron or some other PHP site. Seibertron probably loads faster, and if it doesn't, it's probably because the Seibertron site has more to process.

Oh OK I won't do that then, nice site by the way, the loading time isn't as bad as you say it is.