Help with making a program

May 15, 2015

I've been coding in php for years and hasn't done me much harm

So you say. Read this: http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/ PHP is a clusterfuck; I have nothing else to add.

Ruby w/ Rails, Python with Flask or Django, even Node (though fuck node.js...) would be better for a beginner to learn than PHP. There are rarely any outdated tutorials online for these frameworks/languages, and you are forced to learn MVC by using them--and learn it well.

Too bad no one seems to know what the hell MVC actually is.

SirPaul · May 18, 2015

You'll need more than just HTML. You'll also need to learn CSS. You will likely need to learn Javascript. And to do what you want to do, you'll also need to learn a server side language which includes the languages Neil mentioned.

CSS is not that required. come on. And if so, you can still learn it in about a day

LePawel · May 18, 2015

So, now that you have selected your language successfully, design the program on paper first.

Think about what information has to be stored, how the UI will look, what communication is required, and how, from loading to pressing submit button the system will look. I assume you will need two forms on the page, borrow and return, maybe the statistics on what tools are available in what amounts?

Don't start programming until you have all requirements you can think of backed up somewhere (not in your head).

Look at existing solutions to same or similar problems, how they look and what they include.

There's more to programming than stating that PHP and Java suck and that HTML is not a programming language - "It even says that in it's name".

It's hardly time to do a 3 year course, but it's better to start of slow but well.