I need a kick up the posterior (Please)

[basicchannel]

Hi All,

Now I know you guys probably hate this kind of cliched question, but here goes. It runs along the line of that old chestnut 'What programming language should I learn/what type of hot beverage should I consume on a daily basis' but with a twist.

The truth is I know which one I want to learn, but i wanted to know what you guys thought. I really want to learn Ruby, and then Rails but I have no programming experience. The next thing is I'm one of those annoying people who like to do something different to the norm. I like Ruby's philosophy and the fact that it's fairly new and a bit punk (maybe?). In a nutshell I need some guidance.

NB My goal is to get into web development. I am currently an IT Tech at a school.



Thanks in advance

[NikChillin]

Me too, I am thinking of doing Java through the OU but someone mentioned that this is old hat now.

[GREED]

C# is big because most web parts are coded with this in sharepoint.

I like VB/VB.net because it is (I think) quite easy and simple to pick up, but then I have worked with it for 7 years now (VB certainly)

[LosOjos]

What guidance do you want? Sorry if I'm being thick, but if you know what you want to learn and why, what is it you're asking? (And that's not supposed to be as arsey as it reads BTW )

[basicchannel]

I find I get bombarded with thousands of opinions on what to learn and what not to learn, each one with another set of opposing posts. And then when you've decided there's that age old question 'what's the best way to learn'.

[webman]

I personally don't like Ruby as a language - it's too 'human' for me - I like my curly braces and semicolons. From my experience, too, the whole Ruby on Rails and gems system is notoriously a PITA to install. One wrong version number and you're up the creek without a paddle.

However, it's the most popular language on Github at the moment (along side Javascript), has a huge following and are some pretty good projects in it.

I stick with the traditional LAMP stack (PHP, MySQL) because it's familiar and a very popular and common platform. If you won't be distributing your projects though, that is less of a worry

[basicchannel]

What guidance do you want? Sorry if I'm being thick, but if you know what you want to learn and why, what is it you're asking? (And that's not supposed to be as arsey as it reads BTW )

No that's what I mean by 'A kick'. I guess I just want opinions, plus if anyone out there has started learning, or has learnt Ruby.

[Roberto]

I can tell you one thing. If you're trying to decide what will help you develop into a career in web development then don't consider what will be "alternative and a bit punk" as a reason for choosing something, and instead decide what area of web development you want to work in and learn the languages commonly used in that area. I know it's boring but then... well... as much as I enjoy *my* job, there's still a reason it's called work instead of "super fun happy party time".

[danbuntu]

I'd take a look at some jobs site and then decide to learn php. If you want to go down the 'punk' route I'd go for python as django seems to be getting more of foothold than rails - django will run on app engine for instance.

[basicchannel]

Yeah, I've been spending a lot of time studying the IT Jobs Watch website, looking under the keyword 'Developer'. I did like the look of Python too, and I have read a lot of comments about how PHP is a horrible language, but again, everyone seems to have deifferent opinions.

[danbuntu]

I have read a lot of comments about how PHP is a horrible language, but again, everyone seems to have deifferent opinions.

You should balance reports of PHP being a horribly language versus the number of project that use it. It's very popular and very flexible. But just like every other language there is good code and bad code