[codespook]

I'm curious about what social networking websites are from a coding standpoint. I know I must be fluent in PHP (or similar), but how or what type of code is used for connecting people and the "6 degrees of seperation" aspect that is the purpose of social networking sites? What functions are good to know in order to learn how to make one? Thanks

[macosxnerd101]

You need to invest some time learning about relational databases. This is really a huge architecture and databases question. PHP is mainly responsible for querying the database and sending a response to the client. Not to be rude, but I hope you're not trying to create something on the scale of Facebook. Be realistic about your expectations.

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"6 degrees of seperation" aspect that is the purpose of social networking sites?

This is a graph theory topic. A graph where each vertex is k-valent has a diameter at most log_k(|V|), where |V| denotes the number of vertices. If there are 7 billion people in the world and six degrees of separation, then the graph is either 43-valent or 44-valent.

[codespook]

lol
Its ok. No, I'm not trying to be the next Zuckerberg:-) I do have an idea, but not trying to compete.
Anyways, there are people who know more than me and they can make it tomorrow whereas I cant. Therefore, I may never implement an idea so I have no expectations.
However, if an6thing, I asked out of curiosity. Yes, the users and their profiles (as well as any message board, etc) will be database driven. (example, mysql) But I didnt know about graph theory. Thanks alot for your explanation!

[travesty]

I'm working on a social networking site myself. Here's a great set of tutorials to go by. Only reference it though because he uses the depreciated "mysql" functions. Instead you need to query with PDO (my preference) or MySqli.