So, I have an idea for a web-based business. I'm thinking of doing a social sports betting website (the "betting" wouldn't involve actual cash, though - think fake money). The best example of a competitor I can find is http://en.beterz.com.

One piece of recurring advice that I have read on here and elsewhere is to have a specific project in mind when you start learning programming. I do want to learn more programming, and this is something I would be pretty passionate about creating, so I thought I would check here to see how feasible this actually is.

I have created some simple web sites in the past using wordpress and shopify, and I know a pretty good amount of simple HTML and a bit of PHP, but I have no real experience beyond that.

1. Is this feasible or would I be completely wasting my time?
2. Where do I start? Any resources I should look into?
3. What language(s) would I need to learn?
4. Anything else I should think about?

I have absolutely no idea where to start. If it turns out the answer to this is a simply, "no, you can't do this", then mods - please feel free to delete the thread.

Thanks!

I think your best bet would be to learn Rails, Django or a similar framework. You'll basically learn all the stuff you need (HTML, CSS, databases) "on the side" whenever neccessary.

Project is well suited for that, I tried something similar (betting pools with friends for soccer) but never finished it because there was good sites out there and I just did it to learn.

Mods: Is it allowed to say "PM me for coaching" if someone wants free consulting to start a business?

1. Is this feasible or would I be completely wasting my time?

Everything is possible, if you enjoy learning it's never a waste of time.

2. Where do I start? Any resources I should look into?

Learning excellent HTML+CSS design standards is a great start. Make sure they are tip top which shouldn't be too hard to achieve in a short time. Then move on to basic fundamentals of any language you choose.

3. What language(s) would I need to learn?

Whichever one you are most comfortable with and seems most intuitive. Not many people on here mention ASP.net much, but I'm going to plug it, I absolutely love it. Your basic list of things to learn are:

- HTML
- CSS
- Good database design (look up normalisation)
- Your language of choice (ASP.net/PHP/etc)
- Then probably some JavaScript, but you can leave this to last (and for good reason).

4. Anything else I should think about?

It's probably going to take you longer than you think. Create a plan, and a design are probably quite important for you.

I was probably in a similar situation as you a couple months ago, now I feel pretty comfortable with rails and most of what is needed to be a web developer. It takes some dedication but it's worth it at the end.

You might want to take on a smaller project as your first site, this is a really big one. And I'd really really recommend using Ruby on Rails.

Btw, these are different types of sites and both put their fake money to use with stock market style trading, but I think they'd be interesting for doing research on a site like yours:

http://www.hsx.com/
http://www.empireavenue.com/

interesting