Complex website - complete newbie

[Guest drdes]

I am compeltely new to web design and have an idea for a website. IT is reasonably complex and will include the folling functionality:

 

- social messaging (similar to facebook where people leave messages on someones wall and other respond/comment

- ability to have meaasges which are posted sent to specific email addresses and also via text to cellphones

- sign-in capabilities (again similar to facebook in that once you are signed in, others that you have given permission to can also exchange messages with you)

 

I have the time to learn a new programming language (I know nothing at the moment) and was wondering whether HTML would allow me to do all of the above - or should I be looking for something else (C, Java etc..). My aim is to learn a language enough to get a website that is "functional" with probably crappy code which I can then take to potential investors to get them interested to help for it to be developed properly.

 

I have further advanced features which I wont go into since they would be well above what I can hope to do myself - but I was wondering if I could teach myself enough to do the above.

 

Thanks

[falkencreative]

You would need to learn HTML/CSS first, and then most likely PHP or ASP.NET. HTML and CSS are the basic languages the web is built on. A server side programming language like PHP or ASP.NET will allow you to access a database and build in functionality like your login system, social networking, etc.

 

Not to scare you off, but realize what you are asking for is a pretty huge project, even for someone who knows what they are doing.

 

You may also consider doing some research and seeing if there are any existing premade PHP/ASP.NET software packages out there (or something build on a CMS like Joomla, ExpressionEngine, etc.) that have a majority of the functionality that you need.