Do a search for PHP and MVC.
MVC is a way to structure code and html files.

I agree with the MVC model of organizing your logic and file structure. Symfony.com actually has a nice introduction into MVC by comparing it to a rudimentary site built in PHP.

It has been the best explanation I've come across on why MVC is a solid organization model and why developers who work in a team environment love it.

As far as your database, think major features. If there is going to be a blog, users, contacts, products, etc and go from there. Consider what you could break down from there and how they are related -- like blog categories, product attributes, user uploads.

Also consider things that could have multiple relationships, like contact addresses -- two contacts could share the same address. So you could create a relationship table that links their two ids to each other.

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Your use of php suggests a 'dynamic' website, which is essentially a (form of a) computer program.

The first question in developing a computer program is always: What are all of the things you want it to do (i.e. what results should it produce?) The second question is: What inputs are available (and needed) to produce these results?

Next is the question of mapping out the path to transform the inputs into the desired results. At this stage, it will most likely become clear that some of the data should be preserved over time for reuse.

Generally the data can be organized as entities, attributes, and relationships. There are likely to be many different types of entities (as demonstrated by the different set of attributes associated with each type, and for each type there are likely to be multiple instances e.g. an entity type of Person might have the attributes of: age, gender, and name. 'Bob' and 'Mary' might be examples of 'Person' entities -- they have the same attributes, just different values for those attributes. All of this corresponds to the first steps in designing your database: Entities are tables, attributes are columns in the table, and the individual instances (e.g. Bob and Mary) are rows in the table.)

Jumping forward, after developing (the first draft of) your data model, you need to start to detail out the various transformations your data will need to take on its path from being input, to becoming output. This will help you start to organize the functions and/or 'classes' (if using object oriented programming -- Highly Recommended for anything beyond trivial.)

The user interface (the "Front End") is what most people think of as 'the program', and this is where you start to incorporate MVC models and such.

When starting out on a new project, it often helps to explore the 'Problem Domain' by putting together small demo programs, that might later become part of a prototype, and eventually be incorporated in a final project.

There are various theories about the best way to organize a development project, but many of these are really only appropriate for people who 'have done it before'. In other words, the best way to organize a project for learning (i.e. just starting out) is often quite different from how an experienced team would organize it for efficient development.

Good luck with your project.

Harrison

Also you should lock access to MySQL (port 3306) via firewall to avoid hacking attempts. And implement SSH tunneling for administration needs

First Do some reading about Database modeling so you can design your database tables first. Then do move to MVC (model view controller). there are some good frameworks out there which deliver mvc out of the box. Yii framework is one of the best in this and is very easy to use and is free.

hope this helps

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Not sure how serious you are on the subject but there is more to developing a website than just sitting down and starting to code. Planning goes a long way in easing the process

Website wireframe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
MySQL :: Download MySQL Workbench
MySQL Tool: MySQL GUI client tools & MySQL front end and MySQL manager for developers and DBAs - DreamCoder for MySQL - SQL Developer: Database manager, Database development and SQL tools for MySQL, Oracle and PostgreSQL

As the OP is learning, I'd say jumping straight into MVC is a mistake and will only complicate things.

As it's very important to your whole application, post a schema of your Database before you begin, so we can advise you.

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