[qqqq2010]

You know, I was nodding my head as I read the OPs progression. The first programming I ever tried was Rails (it's the hotness, why not dive in!). My problem was that it was magically solving problems I didn't know I had.

I would strongly argue for (if you have time) experiencing the progression of web dev to its current state from the ground up. Understand WHY templating is useful. Understand that most basic CRUD controllers have the same methods, and the schema underneath is setup the same way. Doing some things the 'hard' way I found made it much easier to understand the reasoning behind today's most modern frameworks. I understood their benefits.

[giberson]

The truth is, despite my reply suggesting going straight to framework, going the from scratch is good if you're able and are willing to invest the time. But if you've got work to do, some times you need to learn as you work rather than learning first. Its in those cases that I recommend the framework route--with the caveat that you accept that theres a reason for the framework's complexity. Don't bulk at it, realize that its there for reasons you may not understand.

Luckily you'll gain "from scratch" experience even through the framework route anyways, since it naturally comes when you have create things that expand the scope of capability of your framework. Even when you are simply extending base classes of the framework, your addressing and solving problems that the base framework doesn't answer.