I'm considering taking a contract building a website and I need some advice to see what I'm getting myself into. Im a software eng. major but this is my first attempt at building something from the ground up outside of school.

the basic idea is -

login/register page...registration involves indicating several interests. The website will then recommend certain things that pertain to your interests.

Other than that, its going to be a simple wordpress style blog set up, with updated posts with new information. Basically Im wondering if customizing a wordpress theme to work with an algorithm that cross references users and other data is going to be that hard (i assume i'll be working with mysql). ie show users with 3 similar interests and you can view their profiles.

Also, is there any good online tutorials on customizing wordpress themes, or tweaking them.

thanks in advance...

In a website some pages are necessary like login/register, guest page, contact us about us and a blog page for showing updation and other pages are used according to the theme and usability of the website.
I think it is a good choice for creating a website in word press and you can download template for website on internet by searching html template.

Thanks for sharing this wonderful news.