Bulletin Boards

[tomyknoker]

Does anyone know of any free(ish) bulletin boards?

[BLiZZaRD]

SMF (http://simplemachines.org) PHPBB (http://phpbb.com) Zeta Boards (http://zetaboards.com) and Tons more listed (http://www.freebielist.com/messageboards.htm)

First 2 are the biggest, zeta/invision boards a free AND hosted on their servers (you can link it to your domain name and have it hosted on theirs still)

Hope it helps.

[tomyknoker]

Is it fine to just be concentrating on PHP & MySQL, for my web developement? Or do I need to learn other database languages?

[BLiZZaRD]

Only need to concentrate on what you will use. No sense worring about JavaScript if you wont use it. :D

[BLiZZaRD]

If you are that worried about it, there are PERL based boards (http://www.eblah.com/)

and ASP forums (http://www.aspplayground.net/)

and Flash Fourms (http://www.tufat.com/s_flash_bulletin_board_phpbb_vbulletin.htm)

and on and on... :D

[tomyknoker]

What's the difference between a PERL based board and a PHP based board?

[BLiZZaRD]

One is written in CGI/PERL and the other in PHP. :)

Not sure what you mean?

[tech_support]

MyBB is a good one.

[djr33]

phpbb is very widely used, and therefore more familiar to many users, so that might give you an advantage, as well as having more support forums, etc.
However, I haven't used it or the others listed, so I can't give you a personal preference.