When I was in your shoes I got a lot out of taking a look at the language documentation for the http related libraries in the languages I used. Often times the

When I was in your shoes I got a lot out of taking a look at the language documentation for the http related libraries in the languages I used. Often times there are good examples that'll get you started for basic stuff. In Ruby, for example, you'd check out open-uri: http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/open-uri/rdoc/index.html http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/open-uri/rdoc/index.ht... For Java, I found both of the O'Reilly books (Nutshell and, especially, Examples) to be pretty useful. If you're really looking to get started quickly on developing a database-driven web application, I'd highly recommend grabbing a Python or Ruby framework like Django or Rails and then making your way through Phil Greenspun's Software Engineering for Internet Applications. (freely available here: http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/ http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/). Good luck!