MySQL - How Can I Use it, and what for?

[mrmagill]

Hey folks -

I read the upgrade notice about we all have a MySQL database. I don't know a thing about it, but would like to learn what I can do with it. I understand the generalities of databases and spreadsheets, etc as I use them every day in my work.

My website is an online ministry. Can anyone think of how this could benefit me? I had an idea of setting up a database of people in various cities, states, countries that need computer help in their schools or other volunteer-type work that helps the poor. Someone willing to help would just look through the listings and see if anyone in their area was available. Or, someone who had time to donate to a worthy cause could look through the listings and find schools, etc in their area that needed help and contact them.

Question: How would I get something like this started, and would MySQL help me? Are there super-simple database programs (?) that a novice could set up with a minimum of lost hair (don't have much to spare!)?

I though about creating my lists on HTML pages, but that sounds like too much fuss to be constantly updating.

I would appreciate any feedback, help, links to other resources that would help me learn how MySQL benefits me or could benefit me.

Thanks -

[irasmith]

Well, for my two cents worth read on and I do hope it helps you out.

You might want to look into one of the many free open source widely available content management systems for web sites. I like them because you can create your site with minimal fuss since the 'articles' you write are acutally menu driven and you can use the built in gui editor to create the pages or do like I do and have it turned off and write your own, including the html code.

The content management system I use is called Post Nuke (http://www.postnuke.com) If you would like to visit my site (http://www.irarichardsmith.com) to get a general idea of just some of the things you can do with a MySQL database driven site then take a peek. It is still in the works of getting content developed for the various parts that I have up and going, so content will be kind of thin right now but that's ok. I'm a programmer by trade so it's a site geared to computer techs and programming techs.

At least in my mind, one of the many modules that work with this content managenemt system that might accomplish your goal would be the pnphpBB2 web forum system. Check out my forums for a general idea of what you can do with that. Manily people can create new posts of needs/wants, others can create posts of assets/abilities they can provide. Users can then search the list so a provider and look at the needs list or vise versa.

Another thought comes to mind, you might be able to use the address book as a way to do that as well.

What you can also do is on the Post Nuke site, go to the Modules area and do a search on topic key words and see what modules are available. There is even a prayer request (http://mods.postnuke.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1732) module being developed for post nuke.

There are other content management systems out there, phpNuke, Nuke, and I think myphpNuke as well just to name a few.

If you search the Internet for other systems like that, look for things that run with MySQL which is the database system available through powweb hosting, and look for those systems written in php, a programming scripting language.

Hope this helps and good luck in your search.

[mrmagill]

Originally posted by irasmith
Well, for my two cents worth read on and I do hope it helps you out.


Could I also have your two cents worth of info on PHP? What it is and what its good for? :cool:

[irasmith]

PHP is an open source programming language, or scripting language if you want to view it that way, which acts as the glue between HTML web pages and the MySQL database, or really any other database for that matter.

By open source I mean that the most popular computing platforms have binary files created by the orginization that creates the language itself. But, since it is open source, and if you have a platform that does not already have a pre-compiled binary for it, you can download the source code and compile it yourself.

It is what you would use as the go between your HTML pages and your database. In a Microsoft only world, this would be termed ASP for active server pages which is the Microsoft technology that does the same thing. Only you would need a hosting provider which provided the ASP ability and then you would need one of Microsofts development environments to develop your pages in and of course you would pay Microsoft for that development environment and related parts that you would need to work with it.

Basically, if I can use this analogy, PHP is the driving force behind dynamic websites allowing you to use MySQL, or another database, along wtih routine HTML pages.

To find out more about PHP itself, visit the PHP home page here (http://www.php.net) or visit the PHP Builder site (http://www.phpbuilder.com) to get a glimpse of articles, code, etc that is possible with PHP language. These are but just two resources that are available and if you search the Internet you will find plenty more.

The content management systems I spoke of are all done in PHP because with it you can create HTML pages program style meaning you can have a single PHP program that has functions defined in it to create HTML header, body, title tags, etc., and you can simply call the function when you need a tag rather than hard coding each and every tag in each and every page on your site.

Hope this has helped some. I encourage you to explore the net for resrouces on the subject matter as you can then really begin to see just how powerful the combination of PHP and MySQL are together for creating dynamic active web sites.