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Ask HN: Interface Engineer Deciding Which System Language To Learn
2 points by ARolek on March 18, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments
I have focused the majority of my web development career on developing web interfaces with Javascript/CSS/HTML. I'm pretty comfortable on the command line in a Linux environment. Last night I started playing the AWS EC2 and I'm itching to start building a dynamic application. The last piece is picking a language, the problem, there are so many I don't know which one to invest my time in.

Right now I'm considering:

PHP Python Ruby on Rails Node.js

Any insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks!



I never programmed a thing before last year and picked up PHP in just a couple months. The W3schools tutorial is easy: http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_intro.asp and the manual is easily understood with examples. http://php.net/manual/en/index.php

Python would allow you to code beyond the web though...


Node.js might not be a bad option seeing as you already know JavaScript, so could save you time learning new syntax. The other options are more mature though.


It doesn't matter. Just pick one and execute.


I'm a front end guy as well and in the last couple of years I've been picking up PHP. Love it.


All the engineers I work with are PHP guys too, so it might be beneficial as I can use them as a resource. Then again, node.js may be the next big thing so I could get ahead of the curve...




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