PHP/ASP/Perl/blah

Hey everyone; I have an idea for a web site I want to make. For the past... five years or so, I have learned quite a bit just by working on small sites for myself. Now, though, I want to try to make it more dynamic, and this would be using something like PHP. I noticed that TNL is in PHP... does anybody know where I can read up a little bit on it. Good websites with tutorials, etc.... BUT IT MUST BE FREE. Im not buying any books!

Also, I realize that I would have to activate or set up something like Apache on my PC so I can test out what I write, but is there any way to do that and make it like... secure or whatever so people on the network wont go in and fuck with my shit?

Any help, much appreciated. Thanks.

You might want to try www.PHPBuilder.com or www.W3Schools.com
I don't know if either will help, but it's worth a look.

-edit-
I know w3schools.com has at least an ASP Tutorial under the web building turtorials, I'm not sure about Perl or PHP, though.

Id prefer to use PHP, just mentioned those other ones. I actually would not want to put the hideous vision that is IIS on my site.

Also I know nothing on how to set up a test server on this PC to be able to test out my code. For what its worth (and probably a lot), I have Linux on this machine too.

www.php3.net
www.htmlgoodies.com

Rhydant: php3.net now points to php.net. With version 4, the PHP group dropped version numbers from the name of the language.

Diffx:

I know you said "no books", but that's overlooking alot of good reference material. My advice is to buy this book: The PHP Bible rev. 2
Along with some articles at http://www.devshed.com (which also has some excellent SQL database articles), this book helped me learn PHP and I continue to refer to it.

I guess that's a little more humane than my plan to put Lhadatt and cka's brains into a press and drink the juice.

Besides the sites already mentioned, go to the library. The PHP books are in the Q section. You're in L.A., so there should be a decent selection, although you should check around the different branches to find the newest books.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Lhadatt
Rhydant: php3.net now points to php.net. With version 4, the PHP group dropped version numbers from the name of the language.

---

...I knew that.

Okay, so how can I set up Apache or something else on my PC so I can test my work without exposing myself to hax0rs?

When I tried to write some Perl scripts, I set up IIS but it was incredibly arbitrary, and I never figured out how to do it for real. Plus... I mean... its IIS.

Like I said I have Linux on this comp...

All you need is the documentation up at www.php.net. Seriously, their online manual is complete, comprehensive and incredibly helpful. It even has examples and user notes for every function you can use in PHP.

To install apache on linux: download source from http://httpd.apache.org, compile and install it (./configure --help; ./configure --your options here; make; make install), do the same for php (although for php you will want to specify --with-apxs in ./configure to make it compile as an apache module rather than a CGI binary), modify your httpd.conf file to suit your neeeds and finally start apache up with "apachectl start".

http://php.resourceindex.com

IIS = Ghey. Use Apache (all of that can be done on windows too FYI). Do not forward port 80 on your comp and set the HTTPD.conf to refrence 8080 as an intranet site (localhost or something). Perl 4 doesn't work with the Apache 2 so get an older one (1.3.2 or something). PHP MY ADMIN is good as a pre-made set of tools though I like more bare-bones one that can be customized more easily by hand (Like DMA News).

Apache.org has all the links you need to get started. ALSO: Perl doesn't dance well with Apache (it doesn't dance well with alot of things from my experience) you'll have to cut and paste a bunch of lines in the apache httpd.conf file to get it to work. I expect an average for a first time user is 8 hours till you finally see results. Make sure you shake hands with httpd.conf - you'll be spending a bit of time with it -_O

I decided to give it a try for Windows, because I want to write my site with Dreamweaver MX and I dont know if you can set it up in Linux, then boot to Windows, etc. Oh well... we will see.

Gyuudluck!

Tracer - I set it up but it says:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Apache/2.0.44 (Win32) Server at 127.0.0.1 Port 8080

I assume Permissions are set up wrong or something. The server is definitely up, its definitely running, I just cant access it and get the Test Page. Any idea?

Router? You may have to forward some ports and specify them in the conf file.

Well... Im on the school network...

That's probably the problem... you need to open a port on the router I belive to get that to work. 8080 for intranet.

ºTracer

Eh I dont think I can do that... fuck it. Looks like the end of the road for my 11th website.