[CodeDiver]

When you say you've just started learning to code for building web apps, do you mean you

(a) already know HTML/CSS/JS and now want to learn a server side language, or that (b) you are going from no experience straight to server side programming?

Regardless of whether you learn Python or Ruby, there is practically no way around having to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for building web applications. You will be reading/writing HTML/CSS/JS in your Python or Ruby projects.

So if you have no prior HTML/CSS/JS experience, I would prioritize those skills first. Otherwise you will learn Ruby or Python then be disappointed to discover that browser technology is a giant hole in your skillset, impeding you from doing the useful things that got you to start learning in the first place.

You can do great things with just HTML/CSS/JS, especially since the browser environment supporting dynamic client-side applications in JavaScript has become so powerful.

Then when you're finally doing something that genuinely requires that logic and/or data be hosted on a server, managed by server-side tools, your knowledge of browser technologies will provide a solid foundation for stepping into that ecosystem.

If you already know HTML/CSS/JS, Ruby vs Python comes down largely to personal taste and whimsy. There are indeed differences, but the differences don't matter till much later, if ever. The greater danger is not that you will learn a language that isn't future-proofed, but that you could waste far more time picking what to learn than you ever might have wasted by picking the wrong language, especially since there isn't truly a wrong choice between two great languages. The debate between them is largely a religious war.

Since you seem focused on web apps, and have already started learning Rails, stick w/ROR. You're on a great path and your current choices won't hold you back. Good luck.

PS If you're interested in learning HTML/CSS/JS, I am thinking of teaching these subjects to beginners (no charge of course). PM me with a contact if interested.

[franparga95]

Hi, I'm afraid it's (b). I have no web development experience.. It all started last year when I had an app idea, I started developing it with some computer science students but I realised that if I'm the creator of the idea and I cannot build it, I can only be like the commercial guy in charge of making money out of the programs those students make! And that wasn't the purpose! So now I've just got into web development from cero (fortran 90) to be able to create a kind of prototype of the product, so it's exactly as I imagine it.

I've started with the ruby course on codecademy, it seems it's just like a fun introduction to the ruby syntax. When I finish the codecademy course I'm thinking about going into "onemonth.com" for learning rails, and codeschool after that..

Thank you! I'll get started with those languages as well :) I'm focusing on web apps, but I'll have to use JS to take the idea to phone app (using Titan from appcelerator)

By the way! Thanks for the invite to the course! I'll contact you as soon as I find out how to send a PM haha