Anyone done any PHP website type things?

[Pseudogeek]

I'm making a website for my mom and she wants to be able to sell her stuff... I'm pretty good with CSS and HTML and I can do a tiny bit of JavaScript, but to make a site store I've read you need PHP and other scripting languages. How hard are they and any caveats?

[TheMatrix]

Well an online store is a bit difficult, especially if you intend to take user data. You must consider security when doing so, or nobody will trust your site, or worse.

But there is another way. If you are good with HTML, you can have your mom set up all her products on PayPal(search the web for a tutorial, I'm sure they exist), and you make the site with text, images, and the famous PayPal button, for each item.

If you want to include PHP(or something else, that's something only you can decide), you could make it easier for your mom to update the site on her own instead of having to ask you -- a simple admin interface should do the trick.

[luq_]

php is the whole new world, called server-side scripting. Unlike most of the other languages(excluding JSP, ASP, Ruby on Rails usually, and some others), it runs on server instead of client. To interact with client, it must be paired together with HTML forms, or better JS or AJAX. I've found tutorial on html.net quite useful (http://html.net/tutorials/php). If you've ever done C, you shall recognize the similar syntax and naming conventions. If not, care not to get lost in method names.
Web store can be quite complicated task, since you need to take care of security/encription as well, not to mention paying methods.
First take a good look at php, and then decide are you willing, and can you do thing like that.

[blackscorpion]

I've done lots of websites in PHP, including a shopping cart. If you want to speak to me; email me.