Need Help

Not for 'how-to' coding questions but PHP theory instead, this forum is here for those of us who wish to learn about design aspects of programming with PHP.

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st1ng81
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Need Help

Post by st1ng81 »

I am new to php,and i have to do a project something similar to social networking sites.How can i build a separate profile and home page for each user who registers.I dont want to use any of the cms available.I just need an idea or any links,i am not requesting for any codes.
Thank you.
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Christopher
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Re: Need Help

Post by Christopher »

Can you provide a little more detail about the separate profile and home page for each user?
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st1ng81
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Re: Need Help

Post by st1ng81 »

Like all the updates of your friends,should be displayed in home page,your photos,chat..might be something similar to facebook.
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Jonah Bron
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Re: Need Help

Post by Jonah Bron »

That's quite an aggressive project, and is likely much more complex than you realize. The first thing to do is get a clear picture in your mind of what it's going to do to some detail. If you have a profile page for each user, you're going to need to store their information in a database and pull it out when someone views their page. For the "home" page, you'll need a table to hold "posts" or "updates". The home page will decide how many "updates" to load from a database, and which ones (posts by friends, etc.).
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kasuals
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Re: Need Help

Post by kasuals »

I didn't respond to this because I didn't want to say what Jonah did. You're looking at quite an undertaking. Even Facebook started out as just a picture and some wall posts and then progressed, but I'm sure he had a solid programming background to finish it in the few hours he did.

You could easily build a simple social networking site with a couple PHP scripts and a webserver, the trick is doing it right. If you don't have a lot of background in PHP or program flow you may find yourself :banghead:

I'd suggest hitting half.com and snagging up PHP In a Nutshell, Learning PHP, MySQL and JavaScript or just PHP6 and MySQL Bible (PHP5 still applies to the latter)
st1ng81
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Re: Need Help

Post by st1ng81 »

i hve 9 whole months and coding in php s also not a problem.But i am not getting an idea how a social networking site works..if any1 can brief me on it..will be really helpfull..even links to any articles will do.
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Christopher
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Re: Need Help

Post by Christopher »

st1ng81 wrote:But i am not getting an idea how a social networking site works..
There are several kinds of "social networking" sites, what is the most important feature you want to implement?
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kasuals
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Re: Need Help

Post by kasuals »

st1ng81 wrote:i hve 9 whole months and coding in php s also not a problem.But i am not getting an idea how a social networking site works..if any1 can brief me on it..will be really helpfull..even links to any articles will do.
I have over 22 years of programming experience... I'm 32. If you have experience in program flow, you'd know how the social network setup works because it is very very very basic... or at least be able to create a baseline in your head. I'm sorry to sound a bit harsh, and if I do... again I apologize.

To be honest, the load balancing would be the hardest part.

As a programmer, I know how I would write a social networking site -- even with trial and error. Program flow is everything. I don't even want to start to explain how you'd create a social networking site. If you have a solid (9 months is not solid sorry) programming background you should be able to backtrace the program flow in your head while browsing the site and write out something yourself in a day or two that is equal to a wall and a profile.

I'm not trying to come off as "Better than you" or "A total dick" but I'm just saying, if you can't create a path from inception to profile inside your head you may want to consider how you approach the problem. When I was about 16 I had an entire wall of my room dedicated to a giant roll-out dry erase board that filled one side of my wall in my room. I would create program flow diagrams and (ANSI C) structure diagrams and work from there. You'd be surprised what staring at something can do for you. Same reason I don't own a Kindle but instead $2,000.00 worth of books.


*edit*

You might consider hiring (budget allowing of course) someone if you are serious about competing with current social networks.
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