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Comment by andyl | Hacker News Reader

Every web app is gonna use JavaScript in the browser. So IMHO learning JavaScript is a must.

Then the question is: what server-side language to learn? If it were me, I'd learn a modern scripting language like Python or Ruby.

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Agreed. On the server side my vote is for Python. I think it is a better all purpose language. So if you have scientific, engineering, or mathematical parts of your app, there will be lots of libraries to help you out.

All though if I started out today with zero knowledge, I'd be tempted to be lazy and just learn Javascript on both the browser and server side with Node.js.

If I started out today with zero knowledge, I'd probably go the other way and just learn Python and let Pyjamas compile it to JavaScript.

It depends on which part of the server you're speaking about. Python and Ruby are fantastic for shell scripting, but I've always found myself gravitating towards PHP for web application development -- but that's only a personal preference. I haven't done any client work with Node.js but I know I'd feel just as comfortable building a full web app in JavaScript.

At the same time, I've tried to use PHP and JavaScript for shell scripts and I just can't get it to sit right with me. PHP is just awkward (again, my preference) and Node's shell interaction is asynchronous which doesn't work well when trying to do things like build scripts.

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