After learning a good chunk of X/HTML and CSS (at least enough for me to feel comfortable about), I am looking to broaden my knowledge.

In the future, I'd like to make a website that users could interact with--such as:

• Sign-in with the same username/password as their forum username/password.
• Be able to review stuff and post comments.
• Post pictures in some sort of image gallery.

What would be the best language to learn in my case? I was thinking PHP w/ MySQL, but due to the extremely large number of languages, I'm a bit confused.

Also, will I be able to learn the language you recommend right away? Such as, can I go straight from learning XHTML/CSS to learning your language?

Thanks, people!

PHP and mySQL will do all of what you have mentioned. I am currently learning this and will pass on some great resources.

Start here:
This is a great list of PHP help tuts. http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web...-from-scratch/

Some great videos here. http://www.killerphp.com/videos/

Practice live SQL queries here: http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_tryit.asp

Now some real use:
This link will walk through a comment system complete with admin tasks. It's helped me a lot! http://www.roughguidetophp.com/creat...sql-and-php/1/

And most important:
People will say PHP is simple to learn. I think that's a bit of an understatement. Mainly, the security issues alone are a lot to cover. There is no point in placing your code out there until it is secure! You may want to read this later after your basic knowledge has come along, but this is a great security article. http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorial/php-security/page1

I hope all this helps! Also keep in mind that all of what you just asked for above can be done in Wordpress or Drupal, etc. But I agree with wanting to learn HOW these things work for complete control.

Good luck!