right my attempts to learn programming have been dismal failures thus far, mainly because i havent had any projects to work on to actually make me figure things out. so today i decided i'd like to make a really basic interface that pulls from an online database, and requires a username and password

i have zero idea how to do this. and know nothing of programming. however i learn by finding out what i need to do, then finding out how i need to do it, then by annoying people who know how to do it with loads of stupid questions.

so for part 1 of this, i was wondering if anyone could offer some suggestions on a couple of things:

1) what's the best way to host the database remotely? would sql be the best bet yeah?
2) the database won't be particularly big or detailed. mainly just going to serve as a remote contact directory for me and our sales manager to play with occasionally. but it needs to be writable to add new contacts. is this a massive pain in the arse to do?
3) would you be better populating the table first, or using the interface to populate it? or a mix of both, just to make sure things work properly
4) best and easiest way to do the interface? javascript? it only needs basic functionality, namely a password protected login, add entry option, search entry option, view records option and the ability to sort records in a couple of different ways. too ambitious for a coding retard? or still ridiculously basic stuff?

i know a lot of this whole programming malarkey is based around databases and pulling things from different places and stuff, so i figured this would be about as basic an intro into it as i could get while still having an end result that serves some kind of purpose

am i right or horribly wrong?

really you'd need to get to grips with a server side language once you start looking at databases

so if doing a project like that you'd want knowledge of html and css, either php/ruby/asp.net, basic sql and basic javascript/jquery

so

1) a MySQL database
2) not much difference in making it writable
3) may aswell populate using the interface for testing purposes or inject a bit at the start
4) see above

once they heard the word crude, BOOM

id have moderate html knowledge, and a little bit of php/sql adminning knowledge which may help so.you reckon it's a fairly doable project? with things like this what's the usual workflow, where would the starting point be like? naming the different tables first, then building a basic program to connect to it?

well how complex a system are you going to be developing?

if it's just a contact info app then you could get away with the one table, if it's more complex you're going to have to start mapping out the structure using entity relationship diagrams

i'd have a look at a book like this and see what you think

i read through an older version of it a few years ago and built this site as a mini-project

i would have had some database/SQL experience beforehand though

basically the scope of the thing is this:

me and our ad sales manager want to have our own database that we can host online with password protected access for use on whatever device we want. the database will contain marketing contacts and pr contacts, each with the following fields: first name, last name, company, product(s), email, phone, contacted (y/n), notes

i want us both to be able to edit any of those fields, as well as create new records. the interface doesnt need any swanky bells or whistles, just a sign in page, a "marketing or pr" selector, a "create contact" option, the ability edit any fields for pre-existing contacts and the ability to search records to save trawling through loads of records

that site you've done there above is probably far more complex than the project im looking at to be honest

there's a second part to the project that's a bit more complex, in that i'd also like to be able to wrap the whole thing in an iOS compatible app. obviously it wouldn't be an app available on iTunes or anything, but it'd be signed for my phone and his phone only. our actual developer can do that part if i just give him an actual working product that's ready for packaging up. though to be honest, i'm now thinking there'd be little value in an app when you can just stick a shortcut to the login page on your iphone and it'll serve the very same purpose

You'd be quicker to just do what every other company in the world does and use an excel spreadsheet. If this thing is even vaguely online you'll need to put a fair bit of effort into making sure someone doesn't hack it.However if you want to go ahead I think the newer versions of Dreamweaver will actually do a fairly large chunk of this for you. You can create tables, link them to input and output fields, create the submit code etc with fairly easy wysiswg interfaces. I only played with it for a short while and it was a few versions back but it must have got easier since then.

if i used excel i wouldnt learn anything though

this isnt something i "need" to do, it's something i want to do

hadn't thought of the data security issues

that would add another level of complexity to the project

there'll be no sensitive data, so not worried about security

sure give it a go then, haven't looked at dreamweaver in a while but could cut out a bit of the slog work

if you're more interested in getting to grips with general programming techniques then something like this might be the way to go

full stanford computer science courses online, might be more theoretical than practical

will probably take a look at one or two of those courses myself

really have to start doing those online programs actually, they look very good some of them