I am going to throw my hat into the ring for a combination of Javascript and PHP or Ruby. This way he can learn both the front and back-end coding structures and be well on his way to making web-applications. Deciding between PHP and Ruby is a peronal choice really, but I would go with PHP, but thats my own inclination because I work far faster and better in PHP than I do in Ruby. That and I feel Ruby is easier to pick up if you have a background in Java while PHP can be easily learned on the fly.
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I am going to throw my hat into the ring for a combination of Javascript and PHP or Ruby. This way he can learn both the front and back-end coding structures and be well on his way to making web-applications. Deciding between PHP and Ruby is a peronal choice really, but I would go with PHP, but thats my own inclination because I work far faster and better in PHP than I do in Ruby. That and I feel Ruby is easier to pick up if you have a background in Java while PHP can be easily learned on the fly.