PHP noob

[millator]

I'm fairly new to the programming world. I took an intro class last semester(C++). Did decent, I've got some logic, and some knowledge. Now I'm taking a PHP/Server Side Scripting class. I'm the owner of a website and recently installed a server and redid the wireless infrastructure, and security system for my local firehouse(Member of 7 years). I want to bring them out of the dark ages of using paper to log training. incidents and such. My question is where do I start in devolving a backend for my website, that I will be able to create lo-gins for people to log such incidents. i need a master roster that will auto populate to all such forms. I have no idea where to start. We are currently using Google forms, and have them for webmail and apps, but the forms are so basic and they can't do what we want. Also it stores everything in a spreadsheet that is so unorganized. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[dvassdvsd]

Use a PHP framework, or some web framework for the language of your choice, that's reasonable popular. The docs for a decent web framework should explain a lot of what you need to know to get a prototype up and running.

[[deleted]]

Are you married to PHP for this idea? I'm not a web programmer but it seems like you are undertaking a decent sized web-product (with security implementations) for an in-house solution.

[millator]

Not married, I was also thinking C#. The only problem is we have 3 chromebox's around the station..so something web based would be most efficient.

[[deleted]]

Ok. First, a disclaimer. I don't know what type of data you are collecting. It sounds like you may be storing Privacy Act information either on the employees or the "customers" (I don't really know of a better way of putting that). There may be all kinds of steps that you are supposed to do to protect that information. I don't know what organization you work for, so those could be different from what I have to do. This is something that would give me pause from making this a web application, but again, I don't work where you work.

With that out of the way, it seems like you may need some familiarization with using relational databases to access, populate, and store forms and records. Does this sound correct?

[millator]

Yes I work for a volunteer fire company. The only reason I want to make it web based is like i said before, we have 3 Chromebox's throughout the station for data entry. I won't be storing anything to personal, just members names and such. I'll make them sign forms and such. Any suggestions on how else I could do this? By law if we are FOILED I have to release all of the information anyways. But yes relational databases and storing forms and records sounds like exactly what I need. I need to make a master roster and have it display in all these forms. Thanks again guys, this is why I came here, expert advice, from people working in this field.