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Large website for communications company. AGH!
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:40 am
by themeaty
Howdy
I've been hired to develop a website for an established communications company in Wyoming. The company offers telephone, television, and internet services.
The company would like customizable homepages with real-time data such as weather and news, searchable telephone directory, and schedules for local television channels (to be maintained by schools providing the local channels).
The website must be developed in PHP. I am versed in ASP.NET but I know very very very little about PHP. I am looking for any excellent books that will cover PHP 4.3.9 as well as MySQL Server 4.
If anyone has any suggestions please let me know! Thanks!
-Meaty
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:23 pm
by a94060
well if u wanted to get realtime weather,you could try and read this
viewtopic.php?t=43238
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:07 pm
by waradmin
My favorite PHP and MySQL book is:
Beginning PHP 5 and MySQL: From Novice to Professional.
Check it out, its a great book and covers a ton about both PHP and using PHP with MySQL.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 2:51 pm
by Christopher
You might want to look at CMSs like Joomla that could get a first generation site up fast.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 2:57 pm
by matthijs
Christophers suggestion is a good one I think. Taking an existing and working cms and extending that with your own code or ready to use snippets is a fast and relatively easy way to set something like that up if you don't have too much experience.
Personally I have used wordpress on a couple of sites, and so far succesfully. Because it's all php, even in the templates of the themes, it's easily customizable. With a little bit of php knowledge you can do a lot.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:45 pm
by wtf
Check out nuSOAP library. It's filled with examples on how to obtain just about whatever via web services.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:46 pm
by themeaty
Thanks for the input. I have 1 1/2 months to complete the project. I want it to be well put together and efficient. I've actually never worked with a CMS before. I will look into the suggested CMS.
waradmin suggested a book, but its PHP 5. I'm looking for a good book on PHP 4. Thanks!
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 6:59 pm
by jwalsh
The book recommended is a good book indeed. It is written for PHP5, but aside from a few Object Oriented aspects, it's all php4 compatible. If I'm not mistaken, he even comments on the PHP5 only aspects, since the book came out prior to PHP5 stable.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 7:44 pm
by a94060
well u could use a rss2php thing(search)
or use a good CMS like E107 or Post-Nuke,or 1 by phpbb like this site uses.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:30 pm
by Benjamin
Ok, so you got hired to develop in PHP, even though you have never coded in PHP before? Because you have some sort of college degree I am assuming? I hate corporate america.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:35 pm
by John Cartwright
agtlewis wrote:Ok, so you got hired to develop in PHP, even though you have never coded in PHP before? Because you have some sort of college degree I am assuming? I hate corporate america.
I disagree, some peoples learning curve for new languages is extremely high -- I would have to say PHP's english like syntax makes it pretty easy to pick up. Not to mention the OP said he does have programming experience.. so lets leave corporate america out of this
Not to mention that I have seen many job opportunities where employers train their employees themselves, so they can teach the programmers do do things a specific way, or whatever.. .
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:40 pm
by Benjamin
Jcart wrote:agtlewis wrote:Ok, so you got hired to develop in PHP, even though you have never coded in PHP before? Because you have some sort of college degree I am assuming? I hate corporate america.
I disagree, some peoples learning curve for new languages is extremely high -- I would have to say PHP's english like syntax makes it pretty easy to pick up. Not to mention the OP said he does have programming experience.. so lets leave corporate america out of this
Not to mention that I have seen many job opportunities where employers train their employees themselves, so they can teach the programmers do do things a specific way, or whatever.. .
Yeah I agree that PHP is easy to learn,
especially if you have coded in C or C++. But going from Microsoft ASP to PHP is a bit different. Actually a lot different, because I have ported web applications from ASP to PHP before and there are huge differences. There is no way someone who has no experience coding in PHP would be as productive as someone who has a few good web applications under their belt. No way. There are lots of little things you learn from experience, like how to make certain bits of code run faster or how to write something faster using a more simple method and even the library of code you build up that you can reuse.
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:09 pm
by John Cartwright
There is no way someone who has no experience coding in PHP would be as productive as someone who has a few good web applications under their belt.
I never said that. All I was saying is that some people (and I've seen it happen) that people have learned PHP in a matter of days and were capable of writting solid applications -- of course they were well versed in other languages.
But the OP was asking for a good PHP book because he got a new job, and you jumped the gun implying you don't agree that he should have got the job, which is not polite and not on topic either

.
OP: Our
PHP Starter Kit is always a good place to start
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:29 pm
by themeaty
Okay, I will definately check out that PHP5 book. Thanks for the tips. If anybody has any suggestions for things I should know about writing PHP and keeping it clean lemme' know.
Well, agtlewis, how 'bout sending over some of that infinite PHP wisdom. I could sure use it. BTW I work for a company with five employees in a Wyoming town of 5,000 people. Welcome to my "Corporate America."
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 11:38 pm
by Bill H
There are any number of reasone why a person might have been hired to do the job. Among which he is known to the person doing the hiring, and is known to be reliable and responsible.
I have more than once hired someone who was highly expert but turned out to be unreliable. Other times it has worked out a lot better to hire someone I knew I could rely upon, who would learn whatever skills he/she did not already have.
(Admittedly off the op's topic, but...)