Hi all,

My friend who's a programmer says it's best to code your own shopping cart because it will give me some knowledge of coding (which is what I need) and is very simple. Would you agree with him? Please tell me your opinions.

Thankyou

It depends - if it were a shopping cart that just holds items and then submits orders by email for processing by a human being, than I'd code my own up since it will be very instructive of coding techniques (although possibly not a good first project for a complete beginner).
If you plan to have an interface with a Credit-card payment system or with Paypal, I would recommend getting a tried and tested system and customizing its appearance to your needs instead.

oscommerce is a good point of call if your looking to learn as it is well documented and relatively easy to build mods for.