

Ask HN: Interface Engineer Deciding Which System Language To Learn - ARolek

I have focused the majority of my web development career on developing web interfaces with Javascript/CSS/HTML.  I'm pretty comfortable on the command line in a Linux environment.  Last night I started playing the AWS EC2 and I'm itching to start building a dynamic application.  The last piece is picking a language, the problem, there are so many I don't know which one to invest my time in.<p>Right now I'm considering:<p>PHP
Python
Ruby on Rails
Node.js<p>Any insight is greatly appreciated.  Thanks!
======
tgrass
I never programmed a thing before last year and picked up PHP in just a couple
months. The W3schools tutorial is easy:
<http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp> and the manual is easily
understood with examples. <http://php.net/manual/en/index.php>

Python would allow you to code beyond the web though...

------
JonoW
Node.js might not be a bad option seeing as you already know JavaScript, so
could save you time learning new syntax. The other options are more mature
though.

------
wmat
It doesn't matter. Just pick one and execute.

------
rhartsock
I'm a front end guy as well and in the last couple of years I've been picking
up PHP. Love it.

~~~
ARolek
All the engineers I work with are PHP guys too, so it might be beneficial as I
can use them as a resource. Then again, node.js may be the next big thing so I
could get ahead of the curve...

