In 2014, my school's technology club (MINET) wanted to build a universal platform that can be used by them and similar student clubs. We started the project but later abandoned it in favor of third-party tools. Everything in this repository is courtesy of @RadhikaG.
This project involves creating a Dashboard, specific to every club in the school, such as MINET, Impulse, the MUN Club and the Biology and Chemistry Clubs to-be. It will be used to manage meetings, create a set agenda, post working material and articles for further reading. It will also help the Members communicate with their Department Heads and vice-versa.
The basic structure of a club comprises of the President, the Vice-President, the Department Heads and the Members. The Dashboard is primarily aimed towards the Members so that they receive regular updates on the happenings in the club. The others have administrative privileges so that they can edit the information related to their respective departments.
The Dashboard will be implemented in Django, a Python-based web framework and the database used will be MySQL. It’ll be put up on teh internetz using the Apache server application.
Django:
Get the hang of Python. This is easier said than done since it’s after all, a new language. That said, it’s a lot simpler than C++ and doesn’t have the meaningless fluff that comes along with it. Download the Python IDE from here http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7.6/ (do not download version 3.x, many Python libraries don’t support it) and use the first Windows link. Look through the tutorials like http://www.learnpython.org/ . You should be confident with using classes before moving on to Django.
Read up on Django. Best way to do that is skim through the Django Book http://www.djangobook.com/ for the feel of it. Don’t overdose yourself with it, just understand what the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern does. A basic frame of the App will be put up on GitHub (soon), so relax. Once it’s put up, look through the code and understand it.
Windows just won’t cut it for using Django, nor for MySQL. And yes, you guessed it, nor for Apache. Don’t even try downloading it on your computer, since it’s a major pain in the ass. We’ll be needing Linux for it, which is precisely the purpose of the existence of the DO VPS (thanks Akshat). More instructions for handling Django there will posted later.