joelthedetwiler

Hey guys, I'm not new to programming, but I am recently taking an interest in web development that I hope to build into a serious career. I have various books to assist in my learning, and I feel like I have a good base now on which to build php applications. Here's my plan: I have an idea for a somewhat simple application (that is potentially extensible) to give runners a place to log in to their own profile and then access their personal running log where they can track runs (mileage, time, etc) and perform various views/summaries of their running history. One potential extension to the application would be to build in certain social networking features. I have many ideas, though I want to start small so I don't get in over my head before anything solid even exists. Here is my question: Would you recommend that I use one of the various php frameworks to build this application, or should I try to develop it from scratch and implement all of the basic functions through my own knowledge and skills? Which option do you think is more realistic for a programmer who has not yet developed anything serious aside from a few-static-pages application and the barebones of an MVC application based on a book guide? Would I realistically benefit more from building withing a well-developed framework that I can learn the proper way to do things from? Alternatively would it benefit me as a potential professional developer in php to challenge myself to develop most or all of the base functionality of my planned application by searching and learning as I go and constantly extending/re-developing parts of the application until I understand the rights-wrongs in standard php design? I know this is highly subjective, mostly because you just can't know which strategy would benefit me most, but in your experience, how have you bridged the gap from slowly developing php skills to actually integrating them into a larger scale application? Did you learn best from using a framework or making something big from scratch? Which direction would you recommend I go? Thanks, folks!