Any recommendations on good tutorials?

[mythikal]

Hello programmers,

Database driven sites seem to be the way to go. I have sites of my own and clients' that would really benefit from this. I haven't had time to learn Php/MySql, have found no ready made solutions to buy and there are no experienced developers in my area - I've not been impressed with any sites I've seen for Irish web developers (and don't know where to start on the rest of the net).

Any recommendations on good tutorials?

Any recommendations on a source for developers?

Projects in the works: web directory; content management with multiple users; property; portal...

I have a ""how-to"" book, that is about a foot thick, but can't imagine that I'll be able to learn this without spending every day and night for the next three months working on it.

I'm not completely thick. I picked up HTML really quickly - does this seem hard because I've never done any programming before?


Thanks and have a good day

[Whatcha]

Where to start, first off i think you need to seperate web developing from web programming, the logic behind a website and the way a website looks are two totally different compentents and the latter being probaly the only thing you see.
I say this because i do a lot of background process scripting, that has no reflect on the way the website looks, i consider my self a reasonable good coder but by looks at my website's you would not get a good indication of this from the style, graphical point of view as the jazzyiness of a website is not my forte.
Tutoriails for Php are numerous to name just a fewww
www.w3schools.com
www.phpfreaks.com
www.zend.net
www.phpbuilder.net
And the last but is the best is
WWW.PHP.NET, it offers a compresenhive manual with clear descriptions and informative examples and a good user contributed comments.
In my opionion the key is you need to understand the basics of programming,flow,methods. HTML is simple and not really programming, it is mearly a formating language like CSS. So php/mysql is more difficult to grasp and learn but you can reap rich rewards from in in terms of the possiblities.
In terms of resources their is masses available with good and bad examples. The best way to see whether it instrests you and whether you could try it. Would be to digest a ready made OS script. Try to follow it and understand it. refering to the php.net manual to give a more depth explantion to the methods used.

The biggest hurdle i find ppl struggle with it that you rarely work with real data so to speak. PHP is a dynamic language so the information you are working with constantly changes but with a set boundry.
IE take a $name varible $name is a container that holds nothing untill you place it in it, in this instance a "name" ie "jack" or "JILL". You will not know whether you are going to be using "jack" or "JILL" when referencing this varible for say a home page to personal welcome a known user.
However you want to be constitant in your layout and you approach so amost other things you will use/want to clean the $name to that it is standard. ie
turn "jack" or "JILL" in a title case "Jack" or "Jill" or maybe all uppercase "JACK" or "JILL"
This is a very basic example usage but if you follow that you just place a container in your page(layout), you will do the (logic) in the background. This way you can create a very dynamic page, in the sense of the information will vary but you still only work with 1 page.

Any how enough of my ramblings, grab a script that does some thing you would like to try and learn and follow it and look up the methods. But choose a simple task, not a complex one.

[dforthster]

Since You Dont Have Time To Learn Php Or Mysql Then Better To Use An Open Source Content Management For Your Website...theres A Lot Out There Gives You For Free. I Recommend Fusion Coz Its The Best content management ive ever used, Im Using Phpbb, Ipb, Vbulletin Before But Now Stick To Fusion =)

[compt122]

In my opinion, although I've never really had much use for using databases, just play about with creating and conecting to a database (use google to find how to do it) then once you know how to do that experiment with tables and PHP variables in order to use entirely different tables (or databases if you wanted/needed) this way you can always expand on what you already have. For example, one table for a login system, another for stats relating to your site.

I've not had much experience with databases myself, I've never got around to making my sites that require them, lol, but still I can think of which fields I would need to do something.

[Albion]

Like some have said, there really is nothing to learn, until you get to the higher levels of corporate work.

Just find an open source application that will suit your needs (google for "open source real estate website"), set up your database, connect the software to it, and away you go. You literally do not have to know a blooming thing about sql to do 95% of what you need.