Creating a Frankenstein Blog Site in PHP From Scratch

It was after I learned how to use PDO that I decided to create a to-do list site from scratch, save for using Bootstrap. As is my learning habit I want the lessons to stick and using them on the to-do list site has served that purpose. But over time it’s grown into a blog site. My goal was to use PHP that I’ve written and without using an established guide. 

The main skills that I’ve used are creating a relational database and connecting to it with PDO that I can then save and retrieve posts as well as edit and delete them. I used $_GET variables to retrieve proper pages and posts, $_POST variables for registration. With SQL’s LIMIT and OFFSET I created pagination to page through long lists of posts. I recently learned how to use $_SESSION variables and cookies to create a login portal.

Right now, I’m concerned that I still don’t completely grasp input sanitation. There are so many functions and it’s use case by case. It get’s complicated quickly. Perhaps I need to revisit that lesson. 

Going forward, I want to turn the site into a writing aid for creative writing. The goal is to help me write a certain amount of words each week.

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