Making a JSON API

So I've worked on a few group projects now where an online API is needed. Every single time there is someone in the group who has built their own for some other project they've and volunteers to take care of the server side part.

Lately I've been wanting to do my own small side projects but I've realized I know fuck all about the server side. I have a little knowledge of php and mySQL and have done little minor things with WAMP, but I have no idea how to do things like scrape a website or read in a bunch of files to get mass amounts of information in to the database and to perform this regularly/automatically. Any help on this specific part, preferably that can be done on a Windows machine while I'm learning?

to answer your question, use curl to scrape sites and mysql/sql of choice to manage data (assuming you know sql). there are some native apis like pdo for that.

then install easyphp to run a no-config server on windows

but seriously
php
2012
not nodejs

PHP/SQL is no longer a good stack for beginners imo. Master JavaScript and stick with HTML5+nodejs as >>13-san says. While the entire web-as-a-platform idea is horrible, it's probably the easiest way to start programming for newbies (who usually just want a site or an app anyway).

But know that it's amateurville online; people are reading tutorials written by people who've watched screencasts of people showing hello world apps written by people who barely have any understanding of the issues at all. Meanwhile everybody is in the same boat: uneducated, "self taught" programmers who spend most of their time reinventing the wheel and dealing with problems that were solved 40 years ago.

Of course it doesn't need to be like this! So make sure you invest in your fundamentals, don't spend all day reading about the newest and greatest.

</guru out

Thanks for the useful information. I know Java pretty well, but really don't know much about web development. I only started learning php since that was what people around me in college had used before. I'll look into working on my JS skills instead

MongoDB
Doesn't this database have a bad rap for like I dunno, forget things? SEPPLES QUALITY
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=FD3xe6Jt

>>16
Some people really tried to use that for business? If they asked me, I would have told them that MongoDB's only use case is [Show HN] - Please upvote my awesome web app.