Creating a discussion forum on the web

I was given an assignment to make a discussion forum for a website. I have no idea what programming language is involved and if there are other considerations on the server side that should be taken care of.

The forum should allow new users to register and their particulars will go to a database. Registered users can post questions or answer questions. Asked questions are to be shown in a list (The list only shows the subject of the questions) and anyone can view this list. If one should wish to answer any question, the answers will be sent directly to the email account of the person with this particular query.

A list of registered users should also be presented and their status (online or offline)indicated. Users can initiate a realtime chat among each other.

Can anyone please help me? Thanks a million!

As I'm sure you are aware, this is a very large project. As for technologies - what do you know, what are you comfortable with? I have written a very simple web based newsgroup in pure ASP. this forum in written in pearl. i've seen others written in (or at least using) cgi script. PHP is a new server side language that's catching on. www.win2000mag.com uses cold fusion for thier discussion group. it really depends on what you like and what you have available. after you figure that out, its just a matter of getting things to work and having a good design.

good luck,

john

John Pirkey
MCSD
http://www.ShallowWaterSystems.com
http://www.stlvbug.org