Hello I have been asked to create a site that will eventually be as large as sites such as www.ebuyer.com, www.play.com etc eg a REALLY big site. This thread isn't about the business idea behind it, just assume that it will be that big. Does it actually require much programming knowledge? I know a fair bit of basic php. I can make my own CMS's. But for a big site like that does more need to be known? Are there any scripts either free (such as OScommerce) or not free that you can buy which will let you set up a very large online shop? Thanks
The skills you will need will relate to code optimisation but you'll probably find going onto a managed server will give you the biggest performance boost. personally I'd go with one of the mainstream CMS systems because of the bells and whistles and security which is standard and work on from there.
Large as in a lot of content pages or large as in a lot of traffic? If it is a lot of pages, no big deal... traffic is another story. There is some skill required to deal with a high traffic website using PHP especially if it also requires a database backend to be live. If you can't muster enough hardware to deal with db slaves or replications, the best course is often to have your CMS output flat HTML or PHP files that don't require live queries.
What CMS system is best for large online shops (free or not free)? Large as in lots of pages and lots of traffic.
The basics will get you started and then you will learn the rest as you go. That is how much of us do it. Of course, the more advanced topics you know before you setup on the journey the less backtracking there will be. chad