making a website

saxo120

i want to design a website, i have a fair bit of coding expeience from my engineering background, so im not afraid to go and learn new things, given my technical background.
i want to design a website that will connect to a database.
im wondering what coding language to use, and wat books/resources are available to me to help me along the way.
any help would be great,thanks you

mewso

Just looking over my shoulder as I write this because theres a large mob of php fanboys no doubt walking towards this post as I type. Anyway I'll recommend asp.net since I develop with it myself. I think sometimes even Microsoft get things right and with .net they weren't far off. Visit the asp.net website, download Visual Web Developer (possibly the best free development environment) which will include .net, sql and the dev software. Have a read of the various documentation there and other articles around then net. In fairness whatever language you chose for web development there will never be a shortage of good articles and tutorials on the web.
I'm fairly keen on web standards and accessibility which was something Microsoft did pay attention to at one time but now they have added an AJAX side to .net which basically throws all of that out the window but thats another story altogether. When it comes to script I write my own rather than use their bloated model. Anyway it's no harm to research these issues as you are starting out.

Red Alert

I would recommend PHP if it's done well - that means using proper database abstraction and whatnot. From a generic engineering background (like mine) PHP seems to fit naturally into my way of thinking and it's easy to develop and test it on different types of servers.

What type of website are you trying to run? You may well find that there's a solution made already (either in PHP or ASP). Always better than trying to reinvent the wheel.

saxo120

thanks very much for all the help.
just one wquestion, will asp.net be the only language il need to get the project done?
will asp.net allow me to connect to the database i wish to use?
thanks again

musician wrote: »

Just looking over my shoulder as I write this because theres a large mob of php fanboys no doubt walking towards this post as I type. Anyway I'll recommend asp.net since I develop with it myself. I think sometimes even Microsoft get things right and with .net they weren't far off. Visit the asp.net website, download Visual Web Developer (possibly the best free development environment) which will include .net, sql and the dev software. Have a read of the various documentation there and other articles around then net. In fairness whatever language you chose for web development there will never be a shortage of good articles and tutorials on the web.
I'm fairly keen on web standards and accessibility which was something Microsoft did pay attention to at one time but now they have added an AJAX side to .net which basically throws all of that out the window but thats another story altogether. When it comes to script I write my own rather than use their bloated model. Anyway it's no harm to research these issues as you are starting out.

John_Mc

saxo120 wrote: »

thanks very much for all the help.
just one wquestion, will asp.net be the only language il need to get the project done?
will asp.net allow me to connect to the database i wish to use?
thanks again

ASP.net is fully integrated with MS SQL Server 2005 (Express Edition). You can have full connectivity to your DB with impressive functionality with only a few mouse clicks.

The "intellisense" feature makes coding far easier and quicker.

Would defo recommend ASP.net 2.0 as a development platform

saxo120

thanks for the reply, im making a website to allow someone to search for a tradesman, so i want it with a drop down menu style to it, that will allow u to filter down ur search using a number of drop down menus. just like autotrader.ie or carzone.ie for example.
thanks again

Red Alert wrote: »

I would recommend PHP if it's done well - that means using proper database abstraction and whatnot. From a generic engineering background (like mine) PHP seems to fit naturally into my way of thinking and it's easy to develop and test it on different types of servers.

What type of website are you trying to run? You may well find that there's a solution made already (either in PHP or ASP). Always better than trying to reinvent the wheel.

ron_darrell

Depends quite a bit on the type of database, the hosting environment and how much time you want to take to learn the new language. You say you have previous coding experience. May I ask in what language as this too may influence the language you choose to use.

In general for windows servers/hosts use ASP (or ASP.Net though I personally think this is a choice that should be based on the size of the project. For a small project it may make more sense to learn just plain old vanilla ASP rather than ASP.Net though many will argue with me on that one).

For UNIX servers/hosts use PHP (or PERL or Java (in which case either Java servlets or JSP pages) and again a decision based on both previous coding experience and the size of the project. If you have no prior Java/C/C++ experience then it may take longer to learn the Java language but on the other side Java may be of more use to you in future projects)

The host will also influence your decision. ASP.Net will be suggested here and you will be told that it integrates with SQL Server 2005. However some hosts do not support this database format (ASP.Net can of course use other database formats (ACCESS or MySQL for example) though not as well as SQL Server the DB format it was designed in mind for). ASP and ASP.Net cannot be as easily deployed on UNIX hosts. PHP/PERL/Java will work on either type of OS but some hosts will not support Java servlets or JSP (for security/stability reasons).

So before you decide on the language find a little out about the database you will be connecting to and the host you will be deploying on.

Best of luck
-RD

mach1982

this might help

http://hell.org.ua/Docs/oreilly/

shortcorner

I would recommend Asp.Net, and for hosting Blacknight. Plenty of starter kits you can download. If its going to be a big database just remember that SQL Server Express only allows databases up to 1G I think. I recommend the developer edition or professional edition. Not cheap but worth it.

stevenmu

I'm pretty sure it's 2GB. In general for hobbyist purposes SQL Server Express is more than enough