Dynamic Website with SQL Server...

[cusimar9]

Does anyone know of any good example websites specifically for Dynamic Websites with SQL Server?

We use Dreamweaver to develop our websites, does anyone have any suggestions for host software? Dreamweaver seems to want you to use Coldfusion but all our stuff uses SQL Server

I've tried using Apache before but seem to remember having some difficulty when trying to use it to have PHP pages access a MySQL database.

Thanks

[CompGeek01]

In my opinion SQL and PHP are the best 2 combination of languages since sed/awk :p . You'll find PHP being used all over the web with mySQL/postgreSQL integration.

PHP is free (www.php.net)
mySQL is free (www.mysql.com)

Are you looking to host this website yourself? Or do you already have a web service provider? Dreamweaver is nice for development..but I've never personally been a fan of ColdFusion...it's just Macromedia's $$$ response to PHP IMO.

At home I run Apache, PHP, and mySQL for my personal website. Just a few questions for ya :)

[cusimar9]

We are looking to host our own websites, yes, we've just ordered a pretty beefy server and need to get things underway

The only thing I know for sure is that we HAVE to use SQL Server (not mySQL) is that a problem or not?

Would Apache + SQL Server + PHP be a good combination?

EDIT: I've just been told they were thinking of using IIS and not Apache, is that any good?

[CompGeek01]

IIS is pretty decent. The two main players in the server world are IIS and Apache. With IIS you'll probably be using ASP and SQL (server, of course)...still a winning combination. I just don't have the money to buy these Microsoft products.

Are you looking for help on how to developed SQL based websites still? :t

[cusimar9]

I'm looking for all the help I can get at the minute! :D

[CompGeek01]

There are a number of great programming tutorials out there. If you're programming the sites yourself check out my thread "Programming Tools and References".

[cusimar9]

Cool, thanks

By the way, I'm learning Dreamweaver at the moment to sort out the layout, presumably I'll just add my php tags into the webpage that does the DB interactions? I won't have to write the whole page in PHP will I?

[CompGeek01]

Nope, thats the beauty. You'll just have to insert bits and pieces of PHP with SQL queries.

[cusimar9]

Great, we can just edit our current site then :D Gotta finish reading this hefty Dreamweaver book, then read the Web + Database book we've ordered, and i'll be singing.

First stage I suppose is something like a login screen, Once I get that nailed I'll be happy.

Can I just run this on my local machine, connecting directly to my local database? Because eventually it'll be running on a server which will be hosting the website, so presumably the settings will be slightly different...

[CompGeek01]

Sure, you can run it on your local machine now and then when you switch it over you can just change where the database connects to. It's quite easy and a great development practice. :t

[cusimar9]

The book has finally arrived - "Dreamweaver MX 2004 and Databases" by Sean R. Nicholson. Its really excellent and has walkthrough examples using IIS with SQL Server and ASP.Net VB, so this is what I'm planning on using.

Dreamweaver really is excellent, shame its so expensive though I could never buy a license myself :(