Stuck at nothing

[Rasmus]

Hi all !

I am currently trying to teach myself the skills of website creation. A few years ago i taught myself how to use HTML and Javascript and have also been using Photoshop and Dreamweaver for quite some time. Even to a point that some car-dealerships hired me and i made tweaks and updates to their website designs. I pretty much feel that i know what i need to know about graphics and animation.

As so many of you. I have this dream of making a succesfull E-business. However my ammount of cash is low and i would never be able to pay a quality programming team to develop some of the ideas i have, which would probably be the easy way. However! what i lack in cash - i got in time!
My ideas require a site very similar to facebook actually! On a much smaller scale ofcourse!
People register which enables them to "use" the site. Their accounts enables them to search ammong other users and to search in "strings" made by other users!
Now - how on earth do i go about making this sort of website? I am trying to read as much as possible on PHP and MySql as possible but its really been a slow progress for me!

Maybe some of you who have done something similar could explain more about how they made this possible for themselves? If you have any good book titles on the subject that would be great!

A whole other question:
What is your thoughts on E-business/entrepreneurs need for some kind of computer education? I am 19 years old and wondering if i should get at a programming school or rather do a business/economy education. My real passion is business/investment but i realize that a software development education would make the start up of a E-business a lot easier and give me a deeper insight on the subject.

Friendly Regards,
Rasmus

I apologise if some of the above is poorly written. My english is not at a high level and i really spend a lot of time trying to make the text more correct.

 

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[joeybags73]

Congratulations on taking the initiative to do what you're doing. I have an interest in web programming but haven't really stuck with it long enough to build up a critical mass of knowledge that would enable me to do what you're doing. Therefore, I don't have the wherewithal to help you specifically with your inquiries. However, I think what might be bogging you down is the thought that you need to make your site complex. I'd say just get the thing up and running with as minimal effort as you can, and then spend time here and there to tweak it, all the while learning the programming process. I don't think you need to go through a software engineering curiculum in order to get the knowledge you need to make your site successful. But if you have a genuine interest in learning that way, by all means go for it. For now, though I'd suggest to keep doing what you're doing. Try searching forums specifically that will help you with your programming sticking points. I did this when I took a class in C++ programming. The professor was smart but was horrible in conveying complex ideas to a class full of newbies. Most of what I learned was from other professionals. All I did was submit the code I got stuck on and they came back with the answers I needed. This will save you time and money. So get your site up even if its bare bones, then make the adjustments you deem necessary. Sometimes we make our lives so complex out of the false notion that life's supposed to be difficult. If you make things simple you'll feel alot better about your programming abilities and will move forward faster in your website development goals. I wish you well.

By the way, which books have you found most beneficial in helping you to build your site? I'm curious as I might want to check them out and try my hand at some programming.

Thank you,
Joe

 

[NoMoneyDown]

The problem many eager computer programmers face on the forefront is they want to jump right in and start coding. This is the wrong approach. The correct approach is to gather ALL your requirements up front and start going through each function of the site. Don't think about the tools needed to accomplish the goal at the beginning, but, rather, think about the functionality required to meet the goal.

Get a notebook and start going through each phase: design, usability, and so on. Once you have a 100% clear understanding of what things will look like and how the pieces all come together, then start designing the glue that will accomplish this. Even at this point, you are still not concerned about what tools you will need to accomplish it all. You are just writing down things like interfaces and how the different components communicate to solve the various flows.

One THAT is accomplished, THEN (and only then) should you start to worry about things like: Should I use PHP? Should I use MySQL? Should I implement Ajax? Should I use a dedicated server? And so on.

Another thing to consider may be should you write everything from scratch, or use a CMS package like Joomla or Drupal to accomplish the bulk of the work.

Just some things to consider.

 

[Rasmus]

Thank you very much for your comments on this!

@joeybags73:
I think you are very right that forums and online advice can be very usefull and informative now! -
To be honest. I only have 2 books on html programming. Both in danish by danish authors, so i dont know if you would be able to use that for anything. However, i never really got to use them very much. I pretty much learned everything i know from reading online articles. Even YouTube got so many informative videos which will really help you understand the relationship between html/css/photoshop/dreamweaver! For me it was a learn by doing process.

@NoMoneyDown:
Thank you for your comment on this! I realise that there is a lot of stuff to be done before i face an actual need to do this. For some reason i just want everything to be possible for me before even having the most simple things ready.

 

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