I'm interested in learning some programming/scripting. I already know HTML/CSS and have worked with VB a little bit in the past. Which language is easier to learn? Is one better than the other?
Both have their own Advantages and Disadvantages, But PHP is widely used and is easy to code, whereas Ruby is a High-Level Language.. (Well, I Feel its 'Assembly' for the Web ) Learn PHP
Personally I didn't like ruby as a programming language years ago, and I still dont like it now that Ruby on Rails has appeared either. Rails is fine, but its kinda like a "Website Wizard!" in that its great and super easy to make fairly conventional things (like blogs etc) but as soon as you want to start trying out something fun or quirky you have to actually dig into the generated code and mess with it, which is not fun! I'd start with PHP as its a more generic syntax (i.e. you can reuse your skills elsewhere more easily probably), and there are Ruby on Rails style toolsets out there if you really really want the Website Wizard feel.
Ruby comes stacked with all of the useful functions that a programmer needs - right out of the box, in an intelligent and well documented manner. Want to check if one string is contained in another? string1.include? string2. Not ( !(strpos($string1,$string2) === false)) (or however that goes) or anything else obfuscated. It's just /right there/.
"start trying out something fun or quirky you have to actually dig into the generated code and mess with it, which is not fun!" such as?
yea dont learn rails... most of all the cool features youd like to implement are most likely already written. it also cuts down on development time by so much you might not know what to do in your free time.
My preference would be PHP if you are just looking for something to assist in developing your own sites. Ruby wouldn't be a bad idea if you are looking at getting into programming as a job.
Like if you have to delve into the guts of the mvc code to get it to do what you want, not what the framework designers wanted. Fair enough the need to do that is fairly rare, but if you want to "think outside the box" you may find it problematic.
the rails framework was created to handle all the common repetitive tasks and site organization. any part of the rails application can simply be custimized just by overiding methods.
Ruby was made to keep the task simple, and not to give too much work. And if you've heard of this term before, you can <customize> your code if you don't like the generated code.
I'm with Matt on this one, the amount of support you can get when you're learning php because of the amount of people that know php in the first place is uncomparable to any other web, or possibly otherwise, programming language. Once you have learnt, once you have a programming mind, then sure, ruby and rails are great tools, but not so much for the learners, php can be worlds simpler than rails can be; at it's simplest, I tend to think Oo can be a little daunting. For a non-programming mind, procedural code looks more like a "language" on a page, once you get to know what a language really is in a programming sense Oo starts to read clearly, but I think to start you should start simple and ruby just isn't that.
krakjoe, i think your spot on. people who have no programming experience, learning RoR would definitly be challenging. however, if they can get past the learning curve, i think RoR would definitly be a time saver when creating new applications. what i like best about RoR is the simplicity to add new functionality to the models and to the site.
My advice to start with php. ROR is still pretty slow for product development, hostings with ROR are not so cheap and widespread. There is a cakephp framework for php that has almost the same advantages as ROR.
ROR main advantage is product development. hosting with ror is only 5 bucks a month for the cheapest service. most decent hosting companies host rail applications.
I would have to say PHP, I imagine that there is far more support both in terms of documentation and in forums such as this one.