Yes. I've been using PHP and SQL for a few years but not heavily. I mostly think of something I'd like to make and play around with that idea on my local server until I get something worthy enough to post online.
I honestly don't want to use any kind of captcha but I don't know of a better bot deterrent than that. Now just need to work on moderation features which is why I'm requiring a password for people creating posts. This way they can make edits and modify/delete their own thread.