Making a GOOD database driven website system

HiImFreddy

Hi all, while I'm still a newbie, I've done more than just beginning programming in PHP/MySQL.

I know that I could make a system that takes information from a MySQL database and put them into new pages. The problem is, I know it would be ugly and clumsy. I would like to know from all you geniuses how I would do something like this WELL.

At this point, the only way I would be able to do this is:

article.php holds the dynamic template.

Pages are accessed via:

article.php?art=somevariable

Then all the other info is put in by:

SELECT otherinfo FROM sometable WHERE art = 'somevarible'

And start putting all the other info into different areas.

I gotta think there's a better way to do this, so please let me know. Thanks so much. 😃

planetsim

The topic to this is " Making a GOOD database driven website system"

So ill explain what should be done before programming.

Firstly before you program or even create a database you should brainstorm.

Basically think, whats gonna be in the site, how do i want the information displayed, is there gonna be user input.
There is more you can think of but its good to start off with.

From there from the brainstorming, id try and think of what tables there should be, from there get feilds, if there are any relationships between tables link them.

From there you have got what is gonna be in the website, sorted your tables out. etc.

Not sure if it helps you, but itd should stop you from getting to programming thinking what you need to match up etc.

HiImFreddy

That's totally, true. I don't remember how many times I had to either rename or add/remove columns because of bad planning/architecture from the get-go.

That's a real big point, one I'm really trying to work on lately.

Thanks man, good point!

Boudga

Hey, I found this page to be extremely useful for templating my existing staic site so that I could focus more on the dynamic data and not have to concern myself with updating every page when "static" code changes sitewide...

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/kendall20001122.php3?page=5

HiImFreddy

Thank you very much, I'll have a look-see.

frymaster

develop a spec-n-req: specifications and requirements - ie what features the app will have and what requirements it will need (ie what browsers and servers you will support). spend time on it: stick to it.
model everything first: if you don't know about erd's and uml's, learn. every hour you spend modeling will save you two of coding. i kid you not! my company has two major sites running: one was modeled. one wasn't. the difference in the quality of the code is huge!
seperate functionality from display. try and generate a generic data structure that you can pass to something like a template (smarty is good). by keeping display seperate, you can easily do things like skin yr app or offer xml or even pdf versions later.
write re-useable tools: if you have to write yr session mgmt stuff for each app then you're wasting time and including too much "special case" stuff into your app. build one generic library or class for each of the major functions and then shuffle them around to build your app. this is a lot more work initially but will save labour later! the best model of this is probably java's "beans". brilliant code reuse! feel free to use other people's oss libs.
use configuration files: try and put as much as is sane in a configuration file. it's a lot easier for you to change the nature of yr app by adjusting a variable than rewriting code and it allows other people deploying yr app to customize it. this brings up the most important point:
to change one thing you should only have to change one thing. try to design yr app so that if you want to change one behaviour you should only have to change one thing. if you keep this in mind yr app will be much much more maintainable!