I would recommend ASP.NET and C#. The .NET framework is fantastic, Visual Studio is a fantastic IDE and C# is a great language to learn and use.
If you don't wish to use ASP.NET then I would highly recommend Python and Django as a platform. It can be a huge pain to install if you're a beginner, but it's a fantastic language and framework.
This is bad advice. In this day in age it is a serious mistake to start learning back-end development on the Microsoft stack. Microsoft technologies are non-existent in every aspect of cloud computing... which is the future of back-end development, and the basis of the future of mobile/web computing. I know a few Windows die hards that are practically unemployable these days because they were either afraid, or technically incapable, of using Linux and command line tools, and now their MCSE point-and-click skills are useless in the new mobile/cloud computing age.
This comment is so wildly inaccurate that I'm calling bullshit. I've never heard of anyone who is "practically unemployable" because they didn't keep up with mobile or cloud computing and I'm willing to bet that you don't know any Windows die-hards. Even the tech hipsters of HN are fully aware of the demand for solid ASP.NET developers in the real world.
I've never seen a job opening for an Azure developer. Sure there might be ASP work, but you almost certainly won't be working on cloud or mobile apps. It's nearly impossible to build a large-scale cloud architecture using Microsoft technology, and Microsoft Windows phone represents such a small portion of the market that it is inconsequential to ignore it completely. These are very strong reasons to avoid Microsoft technologies when choosing something to learn regardless of how employable ASP developers are at the moment.
Comments
I would recommend ASP.NET and C#. The .NET framework is fantastic, Visual Studio is a fantastic IDE and C# is a great language to learn and use.
If you don't wish to use ASP.NET then I would highly recommend Python and Django as a platform. It can be a huge pain to install if you're a beginner, but it's a fantastic language and framework.
This is bad advice. In this day in age it is a serious mistake to start learning back-end development on the Microsoft stack. Microsoft technologies are non-existent in every aspect of cloud computing... which is the future of back-end development, and the basis of the future of mobile/web computing. I know a few Windows die hards that are practically unemployable these days because they were either afraid, or technically incapable, of using Linux and command line tools, and now their MCSE point-and-click skills are useless in the new mobile/cloud computing age.
Python on Linux would be a much better option.
This comment is so wildly inaccurate that I'm calling bullshit. I've never heard of anyone who is "practically unemployable" because they didn't keep up with mobile or cloud computing and I'm willing to bet that you don't know any Windows die-hards. Even the tech hipsters of HN are fully aware of the demand for solid ASP.NET developers in the real world.
I've never seen a job opening for an Azure developer. Sure there might be ASP work, but you almost certainly won't be working on cloud or mobile apps. It's nearly impossible to build a large-scale cloud architecture using Microsoft technology, and Microsoft Windows phone represents such a small portion of the market that it is inconsequential to ignore it completely. These are very strong reasons to avoid Microsoft technologies when choosing something to learn regardless of how employable ASP developers are at the moment.