Web Community

[Jackolantern]

Don't get me wrong, you can learn those things on your own through books, but the problem is self-taught programmers not even knowing to look for it. You have to hear people talking about it to know it exists.

As far as the OP's project goes, yes it is possible to be able to do something like this after only studying the actual coding aspect. But it would not be as elegant, scalable, robust, or maintainable as it would be if it was designed with proper software development principles. Really, anything beyond a "Hello World" program could benefit immensely from software development principles.

Again, though, you can learn these things on your own. It just seems that 90%+ of hobbyist programmers don't bother with it. It is quite boring to study it on your own, and it increases the learning workload by probably 5x. That is one of the reasons why classes are nice. You have to learn that aspect as well, and although it is not much fun compared to tearing through code, you will be a much better programmer for it.

EDIT: And to the OP, I would definitely suggest checking out Joomla! if you want to create a community-driven site such as this. After reading a fairly small book about its use, you would likely be a whiz and could set up your site and leverage user-created add-ons for any additional functionality you need.

[The fix]

I learn more from a show and tell methodology. What I mean is, for something like this, it would be extremely beneficial to learn by seeing it done than simply by reading it such as visual tutorials. It is feasible to learn by reading, but it a worried about it taking years to accomplish the level I would need. Certainly, having someone guide me along and teach me the ropes would be the best way.


However, this could just be my lack of confidence kicking in, and as many of you said, it may not be as hard as I think.


The web community that I am wanting to build would be my gaming community. It would link to my games and so forth.


Bye the bye, does Joomla have a link to a book source of how to use it, or should I just google PHP to find a download resource book?

[Jackolantern]

There are many books about Joomla!, as it has become the most popular platform of its kind today.

[hallsofvallhalla]

jack is right. lots of tutorials and books and there are even some video tutorials out there.

[Jackolantern]

If you learn from watching someone do something, search for video tutorials on YouTube. I bet there are hundreds

[The fix]

I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you taking time to answer my questions. You are wonderful, truly. I am sure my questions are rather basic. I ask some questions such as, if there are specific places or keywords I should search because it can become quite time consuming and frustrating searching on the internet. Since I am often busy, it does help me to ask first before blowing a chunk of my time away trying to search for things, having no previous knowledge. Well, I have actually tried searching in the past for stuff on my own, but as I said here, I have not gotten very far.

How does vbulletin compare with PHPBB3 in your opinions?

Again, thank you for your time. I cannot express how much I appreciate your time and replies.

[Jackolantern]

Your most welcome

Today I believe the functionality of vBulletin and phpBB3 are nearly the same, but it seems phpBB is more popular. I see less and less vBulletin forums, and have been for quite some time now. I think most forum posters are more used to phpBB these days.

[Torniquet]

to me vBul seems crisper. i dont know why but it does lol.

phpbb is free (along with SMF and others) where as vBul you need to pay for a license to use it, and if i remember rightly it dont come cheap. and i personlly would never pay for vBul. i would rather go through the torment of scripting my own forums

i also think that it is easier to integrate vBul into a pre-exsisting website (not the installing it part, but using your login details accross the whole of the website). i was going to do it on my website with phpbb, but i could not find any support for what i wanted, and looking through all the code, it didnt seem to easy to do either lol. reason i say i think its easier on vBul, is because i have not seen many (if any) phpbb website/forum setups, where as i have seen a fare few vBul ones.

i could be completly wrong in the last statement... but meh :p

[Jackolantern]

vBulletin is a pay program? Didn't know that. That would likely explain why I see way more phpBB forums lol.

[Torniquet]

vBulletin is a pay program? Didn't know that. That would likely explain why I see way more phpBB forums lol.

yeah it was last time i looked lol.

but its not neccisarily the software you are paying for... its the licencing to use it. so you have to pay on like a yearly basis lol. or atleast was when i last looked @ it (which was a long time ago :p)