if you have time to figure out and write a flat file news article application .. then you have time to learn how to use php with mysql.
PHP Code:
function addarticle($title,$article,$time){
$result = mysql_query("insert into article (title,article,time) values('$title','$article','$time')");
}
function editarticle($articleid,$title,$article){
$result = mysql_query("update article set title='$title',article='$article' where articleid=$articleid");
}
function deletearticle($articleid){
$result = mysql_query("delete from article where articleid=$articleid");
}
function printarticles($howmany){
$result = mysql_query("select * from article order by time desc limit $howmany");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
echo "<b>".$row['title']."</b> ".$row['time']." <br>".$row['article']."<br><br>n";
}
}
using file i/o functions, these functions would be much bigger, and you would have much less control over selecting and updating data.
just my $.02