I want to learn how to make hacks / code.
 

I became interested a while back but never picked up the tab.
Id like some HELPFUL sites so I can learn and then be advanced...

Roughly give me an idea how long it might take me to learn how to code my own VB Hacks.... maybe 4 years? :cross-eyed:

Id like some help tho to get started.
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O and if I didnt intro myself... namez Aclikyano (act like you know) :surprised:
Ima easy going person... and yata yata... peace.

How long depends on how good at programming you are, what experience do you have ?

I'd also like to start, and have done for a long time. The thing is, I don't want to LEARN php, I understand the concept of it - and I know many here have hacked vB without ever LEARNING php. Obviously, as I go I would hope learning php would come with time.

Personally I have little experience with coding. I can understand and use HTML - but I know that isn't coding.

About 6 years ago I did a course in Microsoft Visual Basic, for the most part I have forgotten what I did!
I did a little Pascal in school about 4 years ago, but again I remember little of this.
I also did some database work with Access about 3 years ago in school.

I feel I am resourceful and a quick learner, but quickly become frustrated with the guides I find on this site on how to begin. I just wonder is there something basic I am missing, a first step of understanding so that I can progress. Every hack I envision in my head, could be coded 100% (in pseudo code) by myself! I just don't understand how to relate the method to the code.

It all really depends on how much basic coding you know, like Paul M said.

I'd suggest learning the basics at w3schools.com, then look around for some tutorial websites. When your looking at the tutorials, just start looking at certain parts, and see what each section does. How they effect one-another, and such. Then start going into vb templates, and look at how they work.

If your a quick learner, maybe 2 months max. If your slower, then around 1 year.

I already completely understand how the templates work, and I've been hacking files since UBB4 days so I have a general understanding of what is going on. I'll take a look at w3schools, thanks for the input.

Aclikyano, sorry for hijacking your thread!

TBH, you are not going to get very far if you don't want to learn php.

books are always useful:) hit up Amazon, B&N, or Borders.

A good advice that worked for me is to hack vBulletin. But writing your own hack from scratch can be a task, so what I did was take a wBB hack and convert it to vB3.0 (with permission of course, since it was going to be public).
That taught me alot. Im almost ashamed of the stupidity of the errors that held me up for months and months, but I learned, and not by some generic book or crap. Books can tell you what functions does, but guess what, so can php.net.
It doesn't matter if it takes 6 months (hell, been there done that).
It doesn't matter if it's full of bugs (ditto).
It doesn't matter if it's not a complete rewrite (this will come as your skill improves).
You will learn alot, and you will eventually learn how to write PHP independantly from vBulletin, should you wish this.
And by that time, you will be writing serious hacks of your own either for the good of your own site, pocket book or for the community :)

At least, if you have the motivation to do so ;)


Happy coding ^^

Yep... you'll need to learn PHP either way. :)

It's not hard though, just takes a little time.

What I meant wa, I don't want to learn PHP, and then turn to vB hacking. I would rather learn PHP as I went on my way hacking vB.