BuddyPress.org

1. Does BuddyPress need WORDPRESS MU or can it be created in a WORDPRESS ordinary blog – in addition do I have to find a hosting platform to host it – or can I just use the standard WORDPRESS blooging platform ?

BuddyPress can run on either WordPress or WordPress MU. If you want your users to be able to create their own blogs, you need to run MU. If you don’t want your users to create their own blogs, you can use regular WordPress.

2. The BuddyPress example looks quite complex (from the point of view of people viewing a site which uses it) eg you would normally describe a theme for a website on a first page then have categories eg if I did a music site – I would say have counties in the UK or towns say Cambridge, Hertford, …. and then have sub categories for ttypes of music eg choral, orchestral,folk….. – is all this sort of thing achievable with BUDDYPRESS ?

Buddypress is just a plugin for WordPress that adds the social media applications (status updates, forums, groups, etc) . Anything you can do with WordPress you can do when you have Buddypress installed. You can still have a regular blog-like website with the Buddypress social media additions.

3. I am a programmer and have used databases (SQLITENING/SQLITE) using development tools such as POWERBASIC – with Buddypress both on the client and server ends – is it possible to program in database links to connect with apps written in POWERBASIC which connect to SQLITENING/SQLITE databases (as dotnetnuk seems to do for proprietory Microsoft SQL databases) ?

I’m not sure I understand this question. Buddypress is just a plugin for WordPress. There is no (typical) client/server model. Your webserver runs WordPress that runs Buddypress. The client is the users web browser. That said, you can program anything you want in any language and create the required interfaces to interact with WordPress, it’s database, or anything else. This isn’t going to be trivial though.

4. Can you recommend a good (cheap) development platform for BUDDYPRESS/WORDPRESS ?

Download XAMPP or MAMP and install it on your local PC. These will allow you to install WordPress on your local machine for development, testing, etc.