I'm using Ubuntu and it makes a lot of sense to me. It's got the basics of debian which I really enjoy. The popularity of ubuntu means that there are a lot of guides on how to do stuff. As far as stability is concerned I haven't had any problems with it at all. If we look at the number of packages then Debian is the clear winner. The downside with debian is that they tend to be quite conservative when it comes to newer version. Which is another reason that I prefer Ubuntu over debian since you don't want to get stuck with old version while developing.
I would look at Antergos, the (more) beginner friendly Arch distro.
Arch is a always-new rolling release system with a lot of user choice.
And contrast to popular belief it is my (multi-year) experience that rolling release systems are as stable as "stable releases" - just with newer packages and without the fear-inducing change of version...
That is probably also why centos has gone rolling as an option in version 7..
