Building A Comment Board

Hello, Everyone.

Im building a website that will host several comment sections. These sections will not only allow the visitor to comment but also rate certain objects. My problem is... this is the first time ive built anything like this.

Im fluent in XHTML, CSS, Javascript, VBScript, and I know a little Perl & CGI.
Ive never built a guestbook so im not sure what i need to know to get the thing working. Other then the HTML form fields... im freaking lost. I dont want to use a form hosting site, I want to do this on my own and if that means learning another language then that's what ill do.

Since this isn't actual a guestbook, Im not finding what i need doing searches. And Ive been searching for over a month now. I keep running into... "First you'll need to build a database...." I WAS thinking, "Sure no problem. I can do that." But those :*** tutorials don't tell me HOW to build it or what extension to save under! Nothing!

At this point Im more then a little frustrated. Please, any help would be welcomed and overwhelmingly, gratefully appreciated.

So my question is... After building the form... Then what? :confused

 

http://databases.about.com/od/administration/a/choosing_a_db.htm

you need to figure out which database you want to use. You need to have your form communicate with your database to save the information. This requires some knowledge of a programming language that knows how to do this. Which language is up to you, but there are so many to choose from.

C# (My personal favorite)
VB.NET
PHP
VBScript (Classic ASP)
IronPython
Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
... and on and on and on

I'm a .NET developer and so I'm biased towards the .NET languages because they are very powerful. If you ever wanted to venture into the world of .NET .. here's a good place to start www.learnvisualstudio.net

 

Thanks so much!
Since starting this thread ive been studying PHP & MySQL... seems simple enuff.
Have you notice how most all languages follow nearly the same patterns??
Except for XHTML they are all kinda jumbled up in my head.

PHP & MySQL doesnt seem any more difficult than any other language.
Only... i cant connect to my :*** database! grrrr!!
i swear.. if i wasnt so even tempered...
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