whats all involved in building an forum??

[dsantamassino]

hi,

Im currently looking for some advice. The hell with forums already built. Let me know if my questions is way beyond the knowledge. What is all required in building an entire forum from scratch?? What programming languages are required?? Whats involved in building the md5 hashes for a forum?? Is C Programming required to build an forum?? Is C++?? Is Javascript?? What about HTML, XHTML, XSL, XML, PHP MySQL, SQL databases?? What in order would i need to learn first?? Whats all involved in the coding part?? From everything i need to learn, what is the best books to get for someone has a learning disability and hard to learn?? I can not mention the place i will be getting books online. If someone wants to know more about where i would be getting the books from please leave behind an valid email.

Next set of questions.

Whats all involved in building an GUI OS (Operating System)?? thats all my questions.

[wtd]

Building a forum system is an involved task. It can be accomplished in a wide variety of ways, and with an almost endless list of languages.

The most common, and most robust way is to store all of the forums' posts, information about them, and user info in a relational database. Databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird and on the non-free end, Oracle, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server keep your data stored in an organized manner and handle a lot of basic tasks for you. The alternative is storing all of this info in files and managing it yourself, but this option isn't pretty, and will never be as robust.

Basically your forum system would look like:

Browser (The User) <---> Web Server (Forum Software) <---> Database (Information)

The user connects to the forums via the browser, which communicates with your webserver. Your program, running on the webserver, gets the request from the user and communicates with the database to get the necessary information, then formats it nicely and sends it back to the user.

The tasks you will have to conquer:

• Construct a database setup that can store your information. This means learning SQL and understanding how to use it to organize information into tables.
  
• Learn how to make your software talk to the database so that you can put data into the database, and get data out of it. Many languages and environments come with already-built packages for doing just this.
  
• Learn how to format the data you retrieve from the database so that it looks good to the user.
  
• Learn how to handle forms submitted by the user, and understand how to validate the information they're submitting to make sure it's acceptable.
  

As for constructing an OS with a GUI... that's beyond the scope of these forums. It's an immense process. I suggest looking at the work done on up and coming operating systems (SkyOS stands out in my mind) for a clue as to what it involves.

[dsantamassino]

wtd wrote:

Building a forum system is an involved task. It can be accomplished in a wide variety of ways, and with an almost endless list of languages.

The most common, and most robust way is to store all of the forums' posts, information about them, and user info in a relational database. Databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird and on the non-free end, Oracle, DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server keep your data stored in an organized manner and handle a lot of basic tasks for you. The alternative is storing all of this info in files and managing it yourself, but this option isn't pretty, and will never be as robust.

Basically your forum system would look like:

Browser (The User) <---> Web Server (Forum Software) <---> Database (Information)

The user connects to the forums via the browser, which communicates with your webserver. Your program, running on the webserver, gets the request from the user and communicates with the database to get the necessary information, then formats it nicely and sends it back to the user.

The tasks you will have to conquer:

• Construct a database setup that can store your information. This means learning SQL and understanding how to use it to organize information into tables.
  
• Learn how to make your software talk to the database so that you can put data into the database, and get data out of it. Many languages and environments come with already-built packages for doing just this.
  
• Learn how to format the data you retrieve from the database so that it looks good to the user.
  
• Learn how to handle forms submitted by the user, and understand how to validate the information they're submitting to make sure it's acceptable.
  

As for constructing an OS with a GUI... that's beyond the scope of these forums. It's an immense process. I suggest looking at the work done on up and coming operating systems (SkyOS stands out in my mind) for a clue as to what it involves.

Thanks for the info. ur not joking about the OS r u?? lol that was a joke. well anyway im currently in the process of learning HTML so lets take it by steps.

After HTML what comes next?? after that?? after?? and so on to the highest point i need to reach to build an forum from scratch?? also wtd, may i PM u on this board for ur email so u can help me find the right books at the place i have in mind?? cause i refuse to post it here it will lead to a banned pretend u didnt even read that. Once in email the board know nothing its in ur hands. Im jus asking for an email.

[wtd]

Please continue to ask questions here. You'll get a better variety of suggestions.

As for what to learn after HTML... it's more a question of how to learn HTML. Be sure that you're using clean HTML or XHTML, and that you're separating content and presentation with CSS.

In other words, don't write:

code:

<p>Hey, look a paragraph that mentions an important person, like <b>Abraham Lincoln</b>!</p>

Write:

code:

<style type="text/css">    .important-person { font-weight: bold; } </style> <p>Hey, look a paragraph that mentions an important person, like <span class="important-person">Abraham Lincoln</span>!</p>

Of course, HTML isn't realy a programming language. It's a markup language that lets us give form and style to text. That's not to say it's bad, but it just isn't a programming language.

There's nothing stopping you from tinkering with programming as you work on improving your HTML skills.

I recommend Ruby, because I think it's very friendly for new programmers, and I'd be happy to help you with any questions you have.

[dsantamassino]

wtd wrote:

Please continue to ask questions here. You'll get a better variety of suggestions.

As for what to learn after HTML... it's more a question of how to learn HTML. Be sure that you're using clean HTML or XHTML, and that you're separating content and presentation with CSS.

In other words, don't write:

code:

<p>Hey, look a paragraph that mentions an important person, like <b>Abraham Lincoln</b>!</p>

Write:

code:

<style type="text/css">    .important-person { font-weight: bold; } </style> <p>Hey, look a paragraph that mentions an important person, like <span class="important-person">Abraham Lincoln</span>!</p>

Of course, HTML isn't realy a programming language. It's a markup language that lets us give form and style to text. That's not to say it's bad, but it just isn't a programming language.

There's nothing stopping you from tinkering with programming as you work on improving your HTML skills.

I recommend Ruby, because I think it's very friendly for new programmers, and I'd be happy to help you with any questions you have.

alright thanks for the info,

wtd,

shall we make this thread over 1,000 posts by tutoring me in everything??

As far as books i go books are the tutorials and i have a tough time following them. When i said i wanted books i wanted to know what are the best kind at http://www.suprnova.org/ ?? Thats using the BitTorrent client. hopefully the next time u reply back here u would say yes u would tutor me at no cost. think about it!!

[wtd]

Books are all to often outdated and/or just plain bad.

I suggest hitting Google to find tutorials.

[dsantamassino]

wtd wrote:

Books are all to often outdated and/or just plain bad.

I suggest hitting Google to find tutorials.

tutorials are to confusing for me. I tried almost every single tutorial.

[Martin]

http://www.w3schools.com/ is probably your best bet.

Definately learn how to use HTML before you start with more complex internet languages. You also might want to look into learning java.

[dsantamassino]

Martin wrote:

http://www.w3schools.com/ is probably your best bet.

Definately learn how to use HTML before you start with more complex internet languages. You also might want to look into learning java.

Martin,

I remember that site clearly from the past and that site is WAY WAY out of my league. Its too confusing. will u teach me at no cost or someone??

[Martin]

It all depends on what you want to know. My interest lies in algorithms, not forums or operating systems however.

[dsantamassino]

Martin wrote:

It all depends on what you want to know. My interest lies in algorithms, not forums or operating systems however.

alright. will u tutor me until it reaches the level u dont know anymore?? Martin. Do u know HTML?? XHTML?? CSS?? PHP?? SQL?? and so on??

[Martin]

I know enough that I can at least get you started. What would you like to learn first?

HTML can be fun, and it seems that you are interested in web design, so it is a good place to start.

If you are going to do web design, it is very good to learn a programming language. I would suggest that you start with Java.

[dsantamassino]

Martin wrote:

I know enough that I can at least get you started. What would you like to learn first?

HTML can be fun, and it seems that you are interested in web design, so it is a good place to start.

If you are going to do web design, it is very good to learn a programming language. I would suggest that you start with Java.

ok great. I start with the easiest which would probably be HTML.

[Martin]

Okay, then let us head over to the HTML forum.

[wtd]

Martin wrote:

If you are going to do web design, it is very good to learn a programming language. I would suggest that you start with Java.

Yes, but I'm not sure Java's a good one to begin with. It's used in a lot of big commercial applications, but Java web stuff is large and complicated, and not beginner-friendly.

Lighter languages that hosts offer support for are often a better bet for web work. PHP is widespread, but as a language, sucks, so I'd say Perl is a better bet. Ruby's even better, but there still are few hosts who provide support for it.