[bbcbasic]

There are a couple ways to choose. One is to choose something that feels right to you. If you try PHP, Ruby, C#, Java etc. which do you find the most intuitive?

Another factor is what languages will get you a job (if you want a job). You can look at job ads, and the monthly whose hiring for an idea of that.

Also it depends where you live. Where I live C# and Java are more employable skills then Ruby and PHP. But if you want to do a lean startup kind of thing, using Ruby and PHP has it's advantages.

I think to start off with ignore npm, bower, webpack and all that jazz and just code up stuff up in HTML and JS. Add JQuery when you are ready. And then try a web framework - React would be a good bet when you are ready. Then once you are used to all that, adding other tools in to the equation will seem less daunting.