newbie to database, little help?

[Nathanieldaniel]

hey there everyone,

i am a web designer and i would like to learning how to integrate databases into web sites. Does anyone have suggestions on how to get started learning? Where should i start first MS Access, MySQL, SQL, Oracle, or something else? Im completely in the dark here so if you guys could lend a helping hand that would be great. Thanks in advance....

[Phil Weber]

Hi, Nathaniel: On what kinds of servers will your Web sites run? If they'll run on Linux, then I'd suggest that you learn MySQL and php or perl. If they'll run primarily on Windows, then learn SQL Server and ASP.NET, or Oracle and JSP or J2EE.

The good news is that the various SQL dialects are pretty similar, so once you become familiar with one, you'll be able to learn the others fairly easily.
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Phil Weber

[Nathanieldaniel]

Ok, great. Now if i am going build a site using SQL does SQL need to exist on the server that my site is hosted on? Im a little unsure of how exactly i go about getting started. Do i need to purchase SQL server? Do i need a web server? Where do i actually do the interface between the database and the website. Sorry, im really new...

[Phil Weber]

Yes, data-driven Web sites require a Web server and a database server (these may be the same machine). If you want to learn LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl-php), you may download and install these on your own machine at little or no cost, or you can sign up for a Web hosting plan that includes them (mtvhosting.com, for example, offers such a plan for as little as $50/year).

Similarly, if you want to learn SQL Server/ASP.NET, you may download Web Matrix and MSDE (essentially SQL Server Lite) free of charge and install them on your local machine. Hope that helps!
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Phil Weber