[jfaucett]

The easiest way has to be PHP + Wordpress if you just want to get your foot in the door as a web programmer. There is tons of work (albeit much of it low paid) for this skill set. So if you just want to get started earning money go with PHP. Ruby and Rails, Python, or the JVM langs provide great programming environments but you will need to invest more time up front, and there are far less jobs on the market for a complete junior / newbie.

PHP was essentially the route I took way back in High School and started earning money with it, learning sql, javascript, html/css along the way on an as needed basis. Now Im a software engineer who has built projects in a half dozen programming languages, still I think PHP is a really good way to get into the field, at least it worked for me.

Good luck