Not sure where to start

[usmhot]

Not sure which forum to post to for this question, so starting here and hoping I'll be pointed in the right direction.

I'm a software engineer of 16 years, but have no web development experience whatsover (unless you count some very simple html based pages published on a free hosting site).

I want to develop a web-site that would require the full gamut of technologies - a DBMS, user registration and login/logout, functionality restricted to user type, (secure) user payment for different levels of membership, user message boards, search / retrieval and presentation of data, etc.

I'm not afraid of learning about the various technologies, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel(s).

So, the question is, where can I find the design patterns / existing best solutions for this?

Cheers, in advance.

usmhot

[bathurst_guy]

I suggest if you really want to learn all of this, enroll in a course so that you learn it properly and you get a piece of paper at the end. But, you can teach yourself online, there are many a tutorial online.
First learn HTML then CSS then PHP and MySQL then SSL
You can learn most of these from w3schools (http://www.w3schools.com/)

[usmhot]

Hey bathurst_guy,
thanks for the quick response.
Have considered doing a professional course, and may indeed go this route at some point. (At the moment I'm pretty familiar with HTML (very familiar with XML - using it professionally); mildly familiar with CSS (enough to get going myself); was thinking about using Java, JScript, Java Beans, etc with which I'm a little familiar; quite competent with various DBMSs and have started looking at MySQL; need to learn about SSL.)

But what I really want to find out is are there design patterns / implementation patterns that I can simply pick up and use without having to re-invent the details.
For example, eBay, Amazon, webdeveloper ;-), etc., etc., etc. all do login, session maintenance, etc. and, presumably, this is so standard that the mechanism for doing this is (almost) 'plug and play' - if so where would I find the mechanism? Similarly for payment mechanisms, registration mechanisms, etc.

cheers

usmhot

PS Thanks for the link to W3 schools - have used the W3 wesites for XML stuff before but didn't notice that they do tutorials in various technologies.

[pcthug]

You may want to check out some Content Managment Systems and Shopping Carts, and then adjust to your needs
A good place to start would be http://www.opensourcecms.com