Website Development

[Beast()]

Well I know this might not quite be the place for such a question...but I feel that this forum contains people a hell of a lot more competent than just about anything else out there.

I don't even quite know what I should be asking...and that is the problem. I'm searching for a bit of direction and I'm sure some people here could provide it.

I'm very interested in web site development.

Now I've learned a bit of things here and there....just simple html and css.

What would I do from here? A lot of my website ideas would need database support...so I suppose mySQL is a necessity.

For example...one of my ideas is simply a website that displays new material every time it is refreshed. This would have to come from some database. I would also like users to actively be able to add stuff into the database, of course first being checked by me, very similar to Wikipedia.

Now..should I just jump right into mySQL? Can I reuse a 'script' for the time being until I start to learn more? Perhaps even dissect the script to learn from it?

Is there something else I should learn prior? Perhaps something else entirely?

I'm not worried about the entire graphics aspect of the site yet...I just want to be able to get stuff like this running...then I will make it beautiful.

I apologize for my incoherence...but I'm sure you can tell at what I am trying to get at.

If anyone can give me a direction, or guiding hand, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks guys.

[maxorator]

You can't just go to MySQL.
What do you want to succeed with learning MySQL syntax, when you don't know how to communicate with it?
You need a scripting language.
Learn PHP, that's the best one out there and if you feel comfortable with PHP, then learn how you can communicate with SQL databases via PHP.

[alphaoide]

Finish one book on PHP & MySQL (make sure you do the exercises or examples). Get a host or install server on your local computer, install wiki, blog, or whatever you want. Customize it, create plugins/extensions for it. Have fun!

[Jaqui]

database query writing:
most modern databaseengines will work with the Structured Query Language, they all have about 90% of the language implemented. so learning SQL will enable you to work with almost any database engine.

scripting language(s):
php is a simple c like syntax language.
asp is one that is very common for people to ask for sites to be written in
.net [ c#, asp.net, vb.net ] is another hot framework to have available.
the entire web 2.0 stuff is XML/XSLT and javascript.
RSS feeds are an xml format.
AJAX is Asynchronimous JAvascript Xml

a lot of companies also want Adobe's Flash [ used to be Macromedia, but Adobe bought them out ]

instead of using html, I would recommend using xhtml, which is html with xml. you can make any scripting language output to the client browser html or xhtml. This has the benefit of making a database driven site have search engine friendly output pages.

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=83951

is not a search engine friendly url, the ?t=83951 is a variable that the search engines choke on.