Need help with a web design project-

[bgivens33]

(If this is the wrong forum, a mod can move it. After a few searches I found most of the web design questions were in this forum)

So, I am undertaking a little project that will double as an end of semester website. It's a bit complicated but I have plenty(3 months) of time and am pretty quick to learn things. I am basically going to create a fantasy football site for my home college team. The format is going to be as follows-

Pick one player a week, can't use that player more than once a season. I am going to have 3 tiers of positions to help even the playing field out. The basic point is that if every player had an average week, they would all score the same amount of points. I'm going to have the lower scoring positions in a lower tier which awards you bonus points to help compensate for the lack of points they would normally earn.

My question is this- I know HTML decently but I don't know much about a backend for this. The thought is people would have to log in so that the website will keep track of what players they have already selected. Graphically, I don't care. It will probably end up looking like craigslist... that isn't the point. I am going to focus most of my concentration on ease of use and making sure it functions perfectly. What are some good programs to use and what sort of programming am I going to have to use to get it to work? Is PHP the way to go? MySQL for the database? I am pretty new to this stuff but I love to learn new things. Can someone point me in the right direction of what I need to start studying? I am going to spend the next few weeks studying everything I need to know and getting a in depth layout of exactly what I want before I start working on anything.

A very primitive setup would look something like this-

Person logs in-

There is a display of the season's schedule.
You select the game for that week.
You see the entire roster for the football team.
You fill in a bubble next to the name you want.
Click save.

Next week-
Same thing except the player you chose last week is grayed out.

Up top you have 3 selections - Home(where the season is displayed) Weekly High Scores and Season High Scores.

That's it.


Sorry this is so long, I appreciate ANY help I can get on this. If I can just get pointed in the right direction I can run with it.

Thanks,
Bill

[Hyperkill]

Bill,

I would suggest that you use PHP since it has a nice learning curve and great functionality. If you haven't already, you should set yourself up with a LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) to make things easier to test. There is a great book written by Larry Ullman called PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Websites. It's pretty thick, but I am confident that if you study it and work through the examples you'll have no problem finishing your project. Everything from sessions to advanced techniques is covered.

[lyceum]

Bill,

I would suggest that you use PHP since it has a nice learning curve and great functionality. If you haven't already, you should set yourself up with a LAMP environment (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) to make things easier to test. There is a great book written by Larry Ullman called PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Websites. It's pretty thick, but I am confident that if you study it and work through the examples you'll have no problem finishing your project. Everything from sessions to advanced techniques is covered.

+1

This is going to be a tough project, and you will be doing a lot of coding, but it will be worth it when you are done. PHP is the best way to go for what you are doing.

[bgivens33]

Do you think I'm biting off more than I can chew? I'm a quick learner and have the spare time... is 2-3 months going to be enough time?

[justineve]

Hi, bgivens33.
Well, i can't suggest you any because i got no idea about these kind of problems.
Hopes good for you.

[bgivens33]

bump.

[Hyperkill]

Bill,

3 months should be enough time, depending on how good you are at learning new languages. If you have never programmed before (HTML doesn't count), you have a bit of new things to learn. Now, if you get the book I suggested in my earlier post you should be all set. From the description of the project, I don't see anything you'd need that the book wouldn't teach you. Plus, you'll be able to pull source code from the book and put it to use pretty easily.

[bgivens33]

Book will arrive tomorrow.

I have programmed years ago in basic so I know the basic foundation of programming. It's just a matter of learning new techniques and syntax. I'll keep this thread updated with progress and more questions ;)