How can I write forum software?

Informal
1

With php language.

2

You are asking a question like that is something you can make in 5 minutes. Not even something you can code easily, it requires high level experiences of hosting, php, sql and front end languages.

Learn all of these langs I mentioned, ask your questions regarding coding piece by piece, look at source of open source forum engines etc.

7 Likes
3

PHP isn’t very good for this because it doesn’t handle URL’s. I recommend a coding language like Node Js or golang (or python I guess) because they can handle URL’s without having a file to serve.

1 Like
4

However php is used in most of hosting providers, plus it is quite easier than what you mentioned that’s why i suggested him to use php. Nodejs is however good for applications with advanced options, but it should be used for bigger projects. Plus it is quite hard to learn if you don’t know how to work with bash and kernel/ ssh terminal

3 Likes
5

Nodejs requires you to run commands, yes. Not too hard though…

PHP isn’t the server language, rather just code that executes before a file and sends it. Different from nodejs where you actually send the file and handle the requests incoming and all. I think apache does that for you.

Of course, I bet there are workarounds (as always). Yeah, Nodejs may require a tad bit more knowledge, but I think it’s worth it. If it’s too slow, you could always try GoLang. Go is more difficult in my opinion, but also faster and more rewarding.

Of course, if you want speed you could try Rust (or even C++).

1 Like
6

I am a node.js programmer and I know how it actually works, but I wouldn’t really recommend this to who is a basic programmer and wants to make website applications like forum .

for little coding projects or testing ones I suggest those kind of developers to use Python or php which are easy to learn.

But when it comes to big projects like game server or chat servers, then golang and node.js are the best choice, python too but I’ve seen somewhere that it is quite slow when it comes to heavy server requests.

5 Likes
7

Oh, cool. A Nodejs programmer! I know Js, but not too good at nodejs (I rlly don’t like frameworks, so it’s a bit harder).
Yeah, PHP is pretty good too. I recommend going the hard way if it’s going to support you overall in the long run though.

8

Like @anon19508339 said, PHP is an amazing place to start for beginners, but also for more experienced developers. As ive said in (several) “heated discussions”, you can build what you want with any programming language so long as you have at least an idea on how to do it.

NodeJS is very confusing to someone who has never looked at it before, even more so if you want to use it in Web Development.

4 Likes
9

Node.js is very hard to understand while PHP is for starter and useful for some cases
examples:
Login systems
Creating files
Databases
ect.
Very useful for starter and understandable.

Edit: most likely you can’t make a forum using only php so find some in the internet.

10

A few .htaccess lines solves that problem. Choosing a different programming language because you can’t be bothered to paste in some config seems really backwards.

After that, the routing engine of the programming environment takes over. And all those programming languages have off the shelf routing components to use. But that’s all abstracted away from you, so it doesn’t matter.

PHP is different in that there isn’t really a self sufficient HTTP server to use. There is no uWSGI or Express to distribute the runtime along with the application. You’re always dependent on an external Apache or NGINX+PHP-FPM process to run the code.

That said, this is exactly why it works so well for web hosting, and why web hosting is so cheap compared to other application hosting platforms.

In short:

  • Learn (the basics of) PHP programming.
  • Decide how your forum should work and what it should do.
  • Decide the tooling you want to use. Do you want to use a framework like Laravel or build everything from scratch? Starting from scratch is more educational, but using a framework gives you a lot of features for free and a good structure to put them together.

If you can’t be arsed, there may be someone online who has created a tutorial on how to create a PHP forum step by step. Just don’t got on a forum and demand someone spoon feeds you it.

6 Likes
11

Same here…
I don’t really use node JS, as I rely on php entirely :wink:

And, also, if you’re looking for free forum software, check this out https://www.freeflarum.com/
Credits to @WebyDev for this

1 Like
12

Really???
Wow, could you tell me?
Thanks!!!

13

Take the Laravel .htaccess for example:

Or the WordPress htaccess:

They are a bit different but the end result is mostly the same: route all URLs to a central index.php file so you can handle the routing from there.

8 Likes
14

Where did you learn .htaccess?
The only tutorials I found were on the commands, not the syntax…

15

Or you can use discourse but you need a pretty bad ass server like aws or DO if you’re getting crazy visits

16

I wouldn’t say I “learned” it. I can recognize and understand common sense, and can write simple things myself with documentation and examples.

Learning regular expressions is really helpful though. Many of these RewriteCond and RewriteRule statements use regular expressions, so understanding those makes it a lot easier to see what they do.

6 Likes
17

Me: Googling up regex generator

3 Likes
18

This topic was automatically closed 15 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.