[apsurd]

This advice is correct, but you can still learn good programming technique via php by using http://kohanaphp.com

OOP, strict php 5, mvc, with a some nice ORM inspired by active record. If you are looking for super easy docs to get you started, checkout the http://codeigniter.com to get you started (kohana is/was forked from CI)

p.s. kohana 3 is the newest version which you can get from github, it's a lot different from 2.x and contains a database mapper called "sprig" i believe. It's supposed to be django-esque but I'm not familiar with django to say anything about that ... only check it out!

Also if you want to go the ruby route, of course there's ROR but do take a second to look into sinatra, it's SUPER easy. it's simplicity is thus - beautiful.