Beginner

[The Dude]

Hello, I am new to development. Basically, I know a lot about HTML and CSS only, but i want to transition from design into the development world as well. I was told not to bother with PHP because the language is "horrid and gross." I want to be able to build web applications and dynamic content for the internet.

Should I jump right into either Python or Ruby? Are there any prerequisites I might need to master before tackling one of these languages? What is the natural progression for a budding web developer? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[sohguanh]

I was told not to bother with PHP because the language is "horrid and gross." I want to be able to build web applications and dynamic content for the internet.


I beg to differ from above opinion. PHP in it's earlier incarnation was called Personal Home Page. It was created to be a Web programming language in mind. It's success with the close integration of PHP-MySQL is legendary. It make database interfacing a breeze if you opt for this duo combination.

With Perl and Python, they were not created with Web in mind. It was only later when Web is all the craze that features of achieving Web functionality was added into those languages. Perl was the "Java" of scripting languages so as to speak. Instead of awk sed sort grep C-shell Korn-shell Bash-shell etc, we only need to learn one language that unite them all.

Should I jump right into either Python or Ruby? Are there any prerequisites I might need to master before tackling one of these languages? What is the natural progression for a budding web developer? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Ruby to me seems to be very Japanese-oriented. It seems to be used dominantly by Japan related companies at least in my country. I doesn't help that Ruby was invented by a Japanese though.

Python provide a very comprehensive built-in set of libraries which make programming a breeze. With Perl, you got to look for CPAN Perl to install add-on modules instead. In this aspect Python is good for unifying and somehow Google juggernaut web engineers prefer Python over Perl or even Ruby or even PHP for reasons I don't know why.

[Jarrod1937]

If you're completely new i'd recommend starting with PHP first. Its more beginner friendly in my opinion (though just as powerful). It also has the plus of allowing for a smoother transition into languages like C and C++ since its syntax is so similar. PHP used to be a bit mangled and difficult to deal with, but those days are long past. Some of the old "features" like register globals and magic quotes have been done away with (quite a while ago actually) and its object oriented features have improved greatly.

[The Dude]

any good PHP resources you would recommend to read?

[Jarrod1937]

These are a good start:
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp

http://www.php.net/docs.php