[PHP] Matchmaking site
Hello, I am new to the list and don't know how kind you are helping complete beginners in PHP. I intend to set a personals matchmaking site for people interested in entheogens (http://singlemates.yage.net) I don't know where to begin, I have some PHP cookbooks handy and am looking to do it the easy way but have no idea how much work and knowledge is needed. What I want is for people to log in (using sessions?), post and modify profile with uploading photos and search for personals based on location, desired place to live, age, kind of relationship, etc. I intend to do it it by steps adding features as my php knowledge increase but would appretiate very much some tips and hints on where to begin and how to design this project. Some tips on where and what I shall learn for this project would be of great help. Thanks a lot, hope this may help other people interested in similar works, -Danalex
Re: [PHP] Matchmaking site
Unless you have experience in other web based languages (other than HTML), I'd suggest this is a difficult place to start because you'll need: - user registration and management - session management - detailed searching systems - automated matchmaking and emailing systems - image resizing and validation systems - content management and approval of profiles - templating systems, code libraries and reuseable modules - form input validation This is a big job -- rather complex. It's the sort of thing you can't do well with modules either... deciding to do this, IMHO, will require lots of planning and knowledge how each one of the above systems will integrate with the rest, because it's the only way to avoid re-coding the thing 30 times, at great expense. Personally, I'd look at each one of the above issues separately in depth, trying to write things in a highly re-useable way, with extensive use of common config files, common functions, and common templates. Once you've got a grip on all the pieces, glueing it all together will be a lot less painful. Incidently, that's how I worked on my first projects :) Justin French on 09/08/02 9:59 AM, Oficina Digital ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: Hello, I am new to the list and don't know how kind you are helping complete beginners in PHP. I intend to set a personals matchmaking site for people interested in entheogens (http://singlemates.yage.net) I don't know where to begin, I have some PHP cookbooks handy and am looking to do it the easy way but have no idea how much work and knowledge is needed. What I want is for people to log in (using sessions?), post and modify profile with uploading photos and search for personals based on location, desired place to live, age, kind of relationship, etc. I intend to do it it by steps adding features as my php knowledge increase but would appretiate very much some tips and hints on where to begin and how to design this project. Some tips on where and what I shall learn for this project would be of great help. Thanks a lot, hope this may help other people interested in similar works, -Danalex -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Matchmaking site
On 9 Aug 2002 at 0:59, Oficina Digital wrote: Hello, I am new to the list and don't know how kind you are helping complete beginners in PHP. I intend to set a personals matchmaking site for people interested in entheogens (http://singlemates.yage.net) I don't know where to begin, I have some PHP cookbooks handy and am looking to do it the easy way but have no idea how much work and knowledge is needed. What I want is for people to log in (using sessions?), post and modify profile with uploading photos and search for personals based on location, desired place to live, age, kind of relationship, etc. I intend to do it it by steps adding features as my php knowledge increase but would appretiate very much some tips and hints on where to begin and how to design this project. Some tips on where and what I shall learn for this project would be of great help. Well I think you've made a good first step by asking others. Iike the idea of a core. If you cannot create an application that can grow then imho you did not do it right. So the idea that you can start with a limited set of features and grow your application is, imho, a good idea that is possible. Think. Sketch. Write don't code anything. Map it out in your mind, your imagination and on paper. It just so happens that I'm working on a singles type site; it is going to be one of those hot or not type sites. I've got the same idea you have. I'll start with something that people will find useful and then I'll grow it. If you were to do it in Perl I could get you started rather quickly as I have an architecture for Perl apps but I don't, not yet, for PHP apps. Mind you, I develop in a virtual environment and so I cannot use a lot of established archtitectures which requires more than one usually gets on a virtual server. Anyhow, think of the core of who your audience is and what they will do. Audience People will register login logout change preferences set preferences upload image(s) People have name age preferences etc. ... build up a data model here. Just think of them and what they will do and what you will need to know about them for them to do those things. I'm just thinking of the top of my head here. BY ALL MEANS do not re-write something someone else already wrote. Look into using modules from Pear and look for modules you can find here: http://pear.php.net/ Oh heck, I was looking in my bookmarks to recommend some links and I found this: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/clancy/phplib.html I need to read that myself. The are saying the right thing here. Lots of classes at this site: http://www.phpclasses.org/mirrors.html?page=%2Findex.html At least read, just read so later, in a few years perhaps, you will have only yourself to blame when you go back to code that was written on the wind: http://pear.php.net/manual/en/standards.php Whatever you do, don't just start coding. I'm working on someone else's PHP application right now. Files everywhere, tricks used to source differen files, I think the original programmer (seems that at least 2 had a hand in it) just gave up. I've refused to work on some old stuff I wrote. Better to re-write it I said. Not so much a rewrite as a reorganize. If you spend time thinking how to organize your code in the beginning you will find that growing your app will be a pleasure rather than a nightmare. Peter http://www.coremodules.com/ Web Development and Support at Affordable Prices 901-757-8322[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
