PHP is a programming language and is very easy to get started on since every web host in the world has a version of PHP5 running on their servers.
There are many web frameworks available for PHP, my favorite being CakePHP but other notables being Drupal, Zen Framework, and CodeIgniter.
You should first learn to program--I'd use JSFiddle.net and some PHP books to teach you that.
Then, you'll need to learn the frameworks, which all have lots of documentation to get you started.
As another commented pointed out, RoR (Ruby on Rails) is simply another web framework for the programming language Ruby, and you could choose to learn Ruby first and then move to Ruby on Rails in the same way I described, if you wish.
I'd say learn PHP - Ruby is like 2 steps from just typing an essay about what you want your app to do.
Comments
PHP is a programming language and is very easy to get started on since every web host in the world has a version of PHP5 running on their servers.
There are many web frameworks available for PHP, my favorite being CakePHP but other notables being Drupal, Zen Framework, and CodeIgniter.
You should first learn to program--I'd use JSFiddle.net and some PHP books to teach you that.
Then, you'll need to learn the frameworks, which all have lots of documentation to get you started.
As another commented pointed out, RoR (Ruby on Rails) is simply another web framework for the programming language Ruby, and you could choose to learn Ruby first and then move to Ruby on Rails in the same way I described, if you wish.
I'd say learn PHP - Ruby is like 2 steps from just typing an essay about what you want your app to do.
Also PHP = more jobs, at the moment. Maybe in the future Ruby or Python will become more popular at the enterprise level
I tend to agree with this. There is a lot of work out there on the PHP side.