How hard is it to build functionality, eg polling, into a website?

[swee'pea99]

I've built, or at least adapted/manipulated/populated basic html websites, amended css sheets and the like, but I've never done anything 'clever'. How hard is it to do things like register people, enable uploading of images and display them randomly for visitors to vote on, show the results of polls, and so on? Hot-or-not-type functionality.

Is it the kind of thing that can basically be bought off the shelf and bolted together, with a bit of homework and effort, or does it really demand the skills of a proper web development company? In which case, how would you go about finding/choosing one...and what sort of fees might you expect to be looking at?

I realise this is all pretty vague and gormless, but any advice/handy household hints and tips would be much appreciated.

 

[MrJamie]

You can get things off the shelf at different levels, complete packages/web portals or just scripts that youd need to bolt together and hack into something that works. Making a website where you can select a file and upload it to the server is rather simple, as is having some kind of login systemm but I guess theres a difference between making a small site for a few friends to play with and something that could potentially get millions of users and survive hacking attempts etc.

Ive not been into web development for a few years professionally, but there was a huge difference between the single guys selling £500-1000 websites using cheap virtual hosting sites while paying a contractor to quickly knock the site together and big companies charging a recurring £200 a day for bigger corporate websites, but providing their own dedicated servers&technicians, constant additions/features with in house numerous developers, domain/email management and 24/7 support. As you cant really see the behind the scenes part, you cant really tell what youre getting though and I dont think what you pay necessarily reflects anything.

 

[Ian H]

Easy to do with one of the free off-the shelf CMS packages. Joomla is one I use. See for instance ukcyclist.org.uk.