NYCPHP Meetup

[David A.Roth]

I couldn't be more new to Joomla and CMS from a developers prospective. 
I have looked through the Joomla web site, and while everything looked 
very interesting I still have some questions. Forgive me if they were 
addressed elsewhere since it is possible I overlooked them.

I have gone through most of the online demo for Joomla. Here are my 
developer's related questions so far:

As a PHP developer, what is the relationship of PHP to Joomla? How do I 
incorporate PHP into Joomla? How do I maintain and manage PHP 
development within a Joomla environment? Does Joomla know the 
difference between HTML and PHP code in its pages?

Does an entire web site application need to be in Joomla? Can some 
parts of the site remain purely PHP and still work with Joomla? Or is 
there no reason why the entire web application shouldn't be in Joomla?

Are their limitations with Joomla as a CMS tool that I should be aware 
of as a PHP developer? Can Joomla have access to Linux easily to 
execute a shell script (that you have file permissions to), for 
example?

As I am designing a new web application from the start with the 
intention of making the entire web site in PHP where pages would be 
dynamically created to obtain fresh data from a MySQL database, how can 
I use Joomla to best handle the CMS functions?

How do I take a web/graphic designer's design/layout and put this into 
Joomla? Are their any limitations of how the web pages must look in 
Joomla?

If some kind soul feels these questions are of little interest to 
others on the list, please feel free to reply to me via e-mail 
directly.

Thanks in advance,

David Roth
rothmail at comcast.net