--- layout: post title: Building a system on your own when you're a rookie tags: [ development ] type: post published: true --- If you're like me, you'll want to build your website the hard way, just so you can get to know a little more on programming PHP and understanding certain aspects regarding its planning and structure. This post is taking place after a conversation I had with a friend of mine in college about building a website from scratch, in order to learn PHP. Guess what I told her ;) So what if you just wanted to build a website to start a business right away and never worry about if it works? Is _building a website / web application the best solution_ if you wanna start off successful and harmlessly? Know what you want ------------------ First of all, you need to focus on pointing out what you want. What is it? * A static information website, with a couple forms? * A blog? * If you are a photographer, a photo gallery to use as a portfolio? * A CRM application? * ... > With great power comes great responsability. Whatever you are trying to do, it's important you know if you can do it or go for already existing applications for your needs. If it's a blog or a photo gallery, I'd suggest using a CMS like [Drupal](http://drupal.org) or [Wordpress](http://wordpress.org). As for CRM platforms, there are lots of them, like [XLSuite](http://xlsuite.org) or [SugarCRM](http://sugarcrm.com) are in the list. Choosing a framework or not --------------------------- Again, if you're going the hard way, you will most likely discard the option of using a framework such as the Zend framework or CodeIgniter, since these spare you the application code management such as URL aliases and filter, database abstraction / configuration and templating, amongst other things. You have two choices: * Not use a framework and learn everything you need from top to bottom. This is particularly good choice if you're inexperienced but want to learn how to write and manage an _application's architecture_ over programming logic. * Choose a framework and focus only on the _programming logic,_ leaving architecture details to the framework. This is a good choice if you have acquired some knowledge over time and so you feel confident you will be using such a framework more often, dedicating more time to the application itself and not just its skeleton. What resources you have ----------------------- I only advise [PHP's official website](http://php.net). It contains all the reference regarding the language and packages included such as database operations, XML, Web services, everything. There's always _Twitter, IRC and Google_ to help you out. Hey, it did for me, why not you? End of story ------------ PHP is just so freaking easy. The hard part is organizing your thought. If you need any help, drop by this website and reach me, I'd be glad to help. If you have any resources or suggestions you'd like to mention, please do!