Help Bigred Nerd Out

So it's been a long time since I've coded, html'ed, etc but I'd like to start a mini project. Basically, I want to create a system to input data, store data, and then track and report on the data based on criteria, periods, filters, etc.

The input system could initially be a manual entry form. Storage could probably be an excel sheet but I'd prefer to use some sort of low level database system in the "cloud" so I can access it from anywhere. I'm not familiar with reporting, filtering etc. The use case (I'll keep it in poker terms, which is not what I'm doing) would be I play online poker, enter some data manually (results, time played, hands, etc), submit and store the data, and occasionally visit some sort of reporting dashboard where I can view results over a period of time, results on Mondays at 3am, hands player per month, etc. Eventually I may want to automate (ie integration into my HEM db for auto import into my tracking db) but that's a future want.

What's my approach?

I found this website: Free Web Hosting with PHP, MySQL and cPanel, No Ads

It offers free hosting with mysql and php. I'm assuming mysql is more than what I need on the storage end.

I do a lot of work with IT strategy, datacenter optimization, etc so I know enough about datawarehousing to know I haven't the faintest clue about good data structuring practices, tool functionality (mysql vs access vs excel), etc.

Any advice is appreciated.

MySQL is a great database but you'll need to know SQL in order to use it (it's not too difficult to learn the basics, assuming you have some kind of tech background already). But if you want powerful reporting over a large set of data, it's going to be much better than Excel. I haven't used Access much but if you're going to build a web interface to do your reporting, you are much better off sticking with MySQL. PHP makes getting to your data really easy in a MySQL DB (assuming you know SQL).

MySQL has a good GUI you can install on your local machine, too, which is free. That will let you setup your tables and view the raw data directly for development and debugging.

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Originally Posted by NightGizmo

MySQL is a great database but you'll need to know SQL in order to use it (it's not too difficult to learn the basics, assuming you have some kind of tech background already). But if you want powerful reporting over a large set of data, it's going to be much better than Excel. I haven't used Access much but if you're going to build a web interface to do your reporting, you are much better off sticking with MySQL. PHP makes getting to your data really easy in a MySQL DB (assuming you know SQL).

MySQL has a good GUI you can install on your local machine, too, which is free. That will let you setup your tables and view the raw data directly for development and debugging.

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So just to clarify, I'll be using php to submit sql queries/writes to the mysql db? I'm aware of sql and have used a sql assistant to view views/data before but any good tutorial sites would be appreciated.

Found this: PHP/MySQL Tutorial - Part 1

Yeah PHP/mysql will do the trick for what you've described. MySQL is a decent database for even some large-scale apps. PHP is a decent scripting language for webapps that doesn't have too steep of a learning curve. I wouldn't make anything too big in it, i'd probably go java/c# for that, but you're probably fine with it for a small/medium app. AFAIK, vBulletin is written with PHP/MySQL behind the HTML and it's served up some very busy forums if you have any performance concerns.

I learned both from W3Schools Online Web Tutorials many moons ago. That should get you started far enough that you can just use google as a reference for more specific things you'll need to know.

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Originally Posted by bigred

Found this: PHP/MySQL Tutorial - Part 1

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That looks like a decent tutorial. I've always like the W3Schools stuff I've come across, too, so I bet they have a good one as well. A couple of other quick links you'll want to bookmark:

PHP: PHP Manual - Manual -- documentation about everything in PHP. It's great if you need to find a function and then figure out how to use it.

MySQL :: MySQL 5.5 Reference Manual -- The documentation for MySQL, also great for looking up specific SQL syntax.

Grunch.

You don't need no help.

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Originally Posted by NightGizmo

That looks like a decent tutorial. I've always like the W3Schools stuff I've come across, too, so I bet they have a good one as well. A couple of other quick links you'll want to bookmark:

PHP: PHP Manual - Manual -- documentation about everything in PHP. It's great if you need to find a function and then figure out how to use it.

MySQL :: MySQL 5.5 Reference Manual -- The documentation for MySQL, also great for looking up specific SQL syntax.

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What he said. I use those two pages for references all the time at work.

Also, don't use an excel spreadsheet (you'll end up using CSV but same thing for your purposes) a database is what you want even on a very small scale.

Also, I don't agree with what daven said about PHP. It doesn't matter how big of a site you're making to determine what language you will use. The language is based off the preference of the coder and what apps you may need to interface with. Facebook is run off PHP, that's a pretty big fucking site.

Use PHP and mysql because they're both open source and you will have way less headaches with them.

Maybe a low tech solution like creating google spreadsheet doc combined with a form will do everything you need. Then once you have the data you can grab it and throw it into a pivot that's what I use to track my expenses.

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Originally Posted by Galapogos

What he said. I use those two pages for references all the time at work.

Also, don't use an excel spreadsheet (you'll end up using CSV but same thing for your purposes) a database is what you want even on a very small scale.

Also, I don't agree with what daven said about PHP. It doesn't matter how big of a site you're making to determine what language you will use. The language is based off the preference of the coder and what apps you may need to interface with. Facebook is run off PHP, that's a pretty big fucking site.

Use PHP and mysql because they're both open source and you will have way less headaches with them.

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This is true, but facebook has had to leverage a lot of c++ and a myriad of other technologies under the covers to overcome the inevitable performance limitations of PHP.

It's highly unlikely bigred will run into any of these limitations so this discussion is largely academic, but I'm pretty confident that you won't find any extremely performance-dependent webapp written entirely in PHP, or any other strictly interpreted language. It could probably handle a basic front-end serving up data from some sort of data warehouse, but anything computationally intensive wouldn't want the overhead of PHP.

C++ vs. Python vs. Perl vs. PHP performance benchmark « /contrib/famzah

Yeah but I would think an asp site would pull the same stunt. C++ is still a faster language than c# and you would use it for any heavy low end applications. Not that I've programmed the biggest sites in the world, but I've never found php to limit me in any way whatsoever.

C# is faster when benchmarked vs php obviously because it's a compiled language. But with opcode caching enabled for php the differences are much less significant. Plus, these speed differences are hardly ever noticeable to the user where more of the page load time is dependent on so many other factors than script speed.

I'm obviously a pro php guy so I accept that I may have a favoured view of it, but I'm also curious to see any resources you have that would state why you think php is ever incapable of running the largest sites while c# can.

Also, just so this isn't a total thread hijack. You should pick your programming language based on how well you get a feel for it. I've programmed in both php and asp environments and hate hate asp with a passion. I found php one of the easiest languages ever to walk into. Asp also had issues not too long ago with it's HTML formatting which was supposedly beyond horrendous and would make the end result site slower than any php site. I have however heard they've taken steps to correct this so I won't comment on that part for either way.

Well the vast majority of webapps you wouldn't run into PHP's limitations. Facebook obv did, and didn't throw it out, they just used c++ on an as-need basis, where performance was an issue. You're absolutely right that typically your performance bottlenecks won't be in the script execution, but it will happen with certain computationally intensive applications.

Admittedly I wasn't aware of how far PHP has come with PHP5 finally adding all the much needed OO features of mature OO languages. I also wasn't aware of the number of MVCs, ORMs etc available for PHP. Some quick googling gives me the impression that these frameworks are more mature and community supported for java, than PHP, but it seems that the PHP community has come a long way since I was writing PHP apps.

I shouldn't have mentioned c#, I'm much more experienced with Java, and kinda hate c# (and lol asp). I'd still favor Java over PHP for larger-scale webapps, as I think Java is more mature (and specifically designed) for large-scale webapps where you need to worry about things like clustering & HA, but it seems like the line is becoming more blurred as PHP is rapidly maturing. Still, I wasn't able to find a hibernate-equivalent in PHP, just ORMs that don't offer things like hibernate's L1/L2 cache, or HQL for a more customized persistence layer. It's possible I'm just unaware of something similar for PHP though.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of PHP (except for the syntax, but w/e), but the programming snob in me can't accept any weakly-typed language for anything serious (serious being less than 2% of webapps). I'd still use it for the vast majority of my personal projects as it's highly supported by most hosting companies and it does lend itself to fast dev cycles.

You've forced me to change my mind a bunch about PHP -- I'm impressed with the amount of community support out there. The arguments against it are getting weaker and weaker as it matures...