Where to Start?

[babyPeter]

Hi :) ,

I have very poor knowledge in Web development since my field in Electronics. But, I want to develop a web application in my spare time. But, I wonder where to start and what to select since there are many options available. :(

My site will be providing users with the information of available Tourist accommodations in my town. Accommodation providers will be able to register in my site and enter booked dates and details of their place. When Accommodation seekers go through my site , they will be able to search available accommodation by date and when they click on the selected accommodation they will be routed to a dedicated page of that service provider.

To develop such a simple web application, I have decided to use PHP,MySql and Apache. But, I came to know about a famous CMS ,Drupal, which claims to be the best solution for web development these days. But , I believe it is good only for News casting sites. What do you all think?

How can I start this web development? What are the tools to start? What should I read? Any good references? any sample websites? My aim is to learn open source web development while providing people who comes to my town as tourists with easy access to information.


Thank you all in advance. Appreciate your time. :)

Have a great week. :)

[michaelangrave]

Hi,

Welcome to the Forums, and I'd like to wish you good luck with your venture into the field.

I think you have made the right decision, when it comes to choosing PHP and MySQL, as these are the weapon of choice for a wide community of develepers around the world, giving you lots of much needed support on the web.

Your solution, seems to be a little bespoke for an out of the box solution like drupal. No doubt that it could be kind of moulded using an array of plugins, but I'd guess you'd perhaps be looking to developing this from scratch.

I would start by following a few tutorials to give you a basic understanding of how things work, and maybe follow a recommended book into the depths of database driven applications.

Be aware, that this project will be big, and will require a lot of work, so start off small, and look to phase in functionality as your confidence and ability progresses.

Failing this, you might want to look for a purpose built "directory script", but I'm sure anything decent would be reflected in its cost.

Good look again!