You too? My name is Reinhard, I am from Venezuela. Student of Systems Engineering. During 12 years of my life, I was fascinated by the forums, I was able to create all a forum software. I called HardBoard, but it was basic, I could add many features during 3 years of programming. This was a personal project, nobody knows this on the internet, but I could try it and create a forum with it. I had many mistakes, which I corrected. But on the way, I realized one thing. I wanted to have my own forum, that no one had the unique characteristics of my forum, I wanted my website to have a forum built from scratch by me (which I did), and it would become incredible. A web page called 3DJuegos, gave me many ideas, also Gaia Online (the biggest forum in the world).
I would recommend this:
1. Learn at an expert level: HTML and CSS is too basic
2. Learn these programming languages (in this order): C, C ++, PHP / Laravel, Java, Javascript.
3. Follow closely the great software of forums in the world: XenForo, vBulletin, Invision Power, Burning Board, phpBB, myBB, SMF, PunBB, BBPress and Vanilla Forum.
4. Study for a whole year, with lots of practice and also mix your knowledge in what you should learn in points 1 and 2.
5. Collaborate with open source forum software such as: phpBB, BBPress, myBB, etc. This way you will learn to develop a forum, its structure, architecture, security, fixing of errors, stopping of errors, simulations, etc.
6. You can grab phpBB and give a read to all your code, see each thing, look for its logic, its function, so that each line of code serves.
7. Learn undoubtedly about Marketing, e-commerce, finance, payment methods, resources and tools on this (Magento can serve).
8. Try to become proficient in using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Magento. This will give you more insight when it comes to programming, it will give you creativity, it will give you a lot of scope. And also it will give you work in the network, because if you become expert in all this. You will be a very requested webmaster, and with the money earned you can try to invest in your dream, to create a forum software (open source or paid, it is your choice).
9. Also do not forget to learn all about SEO, advertising, AdWords, how to make your forum friendly with them.
10. It is important that you learn about Networking and Web Security.
11. Do not forget to prepare for your forum software to be social. Be easy to use, eye-friendly and in use.
12. Almost forgot, you should learn about databases: preferably on SQL, MySQL, XML. Not only know how to use them, but also know how to integrate with the programming language in which you plan to write your forum software.
13. Understanding Application Security - specifically the OWASP Top 10. This is more important than you can imagine.
14. Go through many user forums, this gives you creativity, variety of styles and different uses of a feature. In every web page that I enter, the first thing I do is to review their forums. I search if it has a forum, I review it in its entirety, it serves me to learn new methods and ways of doing something.
Now about tips for pursuing:
I recommend you study hard and do too much practice on each topic. There are endless resources, manuals, guides and PDF about everything you need to know. But it is also necessary, that you start at once, do not wait any longer.
And web development is kinda interested and mysteri for me.
