What language to learn for web dev

Alannah Gallagher

Which of these server side scripting languages would be most useful (I only intend to learn one)?

Perl, PHP, Ruby, Python, ASP, JSP or something I haven't even listed?

ChRoMe

Drop the first two in the list, cant really go wrong with any of the last 4.

KonFusion

Alannah Gallagher wrote: »

Which of these server side scripting languages would be most useful (I only intend to learn one)?

Perl, PHP, Ruby, Python, ASP, JSP or something I haven't even listed?

Can you define your criteria on what would make them useful?

What do you hope to accomplish in learning one of them?

PHP is probably the most popular, followed by Ruby, Python & ASP.

If I had to pick one, I couldn't. I'd pick two = Ruby & Python.

Edit: This may be of interest = https://github.com/languages

Goodshape

It depends what you're learning for or what you hope to achieve. All of those languages could be used for web development, PHP being probably the most common (Facebook, Wikipedia, Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress all use PHP, to name just a few). Ruby and Python are also popular and have really nice web frameworks and active communities around Ruby on Rails and Django respectively.

I've personally never had a fun time using ASP and haven't ever dabbled in JSP or Perl.


I'd say, if you want to "get the job done" with the lowest barrier for entry, and maybe (or not) use something like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal or any of the countless other resources available for it, go with PHP.

If you enjoy programming and want to learn a bit to do it right (before you can do anything), then PHP still isn't a bad choice but also browse the docs and community for Ruby (+ Ruby on Rails) and Python (+ Django) and decide for yourself which one looks better suited / more interesting / whatever.

Procasinator

It really depends on what you are using it for. The fact you only what to learn one, and you haven't listed any particular career aspirations or other requirements, I would recommend you also consider Javascript (in particular, node.js).

I just feel if I wanted only one language to use for casual web development than JS as a language allows you to kill two birds with one stone - you have a language you can use in the browser and the server.

Note, that generally learning ASP(.NET I assume) means learning C#/VB while learning JSP means learning Java.

philologos

Procasinator wrote: »

It really depends on what you are using it for. The fact you only what to learn one, and you haven't listed any particular career aspirations or other requirements, I would recommend you also consider Javascript (in particular, node.js).

I just feel if I wanted only one language to use for casual web development than JS as a language allows you to kill two birds with one stone - you have a language you can use in the browser and the server.

Note, that generally learning ASP(.NET I assume) means learning C#/VB while learning JSP means learning Java.

I've been very curious about node.js - I'm looking to give it a go in the next few weeks as I get free time. Got a test server at home where I put a lot of this stuff on, but the idea of being able to use a single language both frontend and backend is an interesting possibility.

If I had a choice I'd probably still do it in PHP or ASP.NET because I'm familiar with PHP and the .NET framework. I could do with developing more sites using MVC frameworks both in PHP and ASP.NET.