[oceola]

well, that's a good start. but reading HN is about as close as I ever get to startups, so I really don't know what technologies to recommend him to study, nor what scope his projects should reach before he can realistically expect to be employable. Any pointers? e.g. Is RoR as ubiquitous as I imagine it to be?

[andyhmltn]

The technology (at least in my experience) isn't as important as the ability to code. If you can code perfect Ruby, chances are you can (with a bit of practice) do the same in Python.

However, in reality a lot of companies hire purely on a per language basis which sucks.