Date: 03/31/11 (WebDesign)    Keywords: php, css, html, java, web, apache

Background info: I am a graphic design major who's interested in and currently taking a course on web design. I'm also minoring in computer science, and taking Web Architecture and Application Development right now. Our last assignment for this class is to create our own application, using whatever language we'd like. He's currently going over Apache Struts, but we're not required to used that. We'll just be more on our own if we choose another language.

I'm not sure I want to devote a ton of time to teaching myself a new language, unless it's definitely going to help me if I were to continue pursuing web design more. I was originally thinking I may try PHP, and using this handy dandy chart on wiki, I determined that Joomla seems like the thing to use if I want to go that route (I believe we need the MVC thing). My web prof also suggested I look into Ruby, and Ruby on Rails.

So my question to you is, which would be more advantageous to learn, PHP and Joomla, or Ruby and Ruby on Rails?

And secondly, how difficult is it to learn them? (I know Java, HTML, and CSS. And COBOL, but that hardly seems relevant) Is one easier than the other? This project is due in about 4 weeks, and the application has to be fairly complex. Am I a lunatic to consider teaching myself a new language and create an application using it in that amount of time? Should I just go with Struts since I'd be able to get more help from my professor?

I'm in the process of researching this on my own, but I'd love to hear any advice or suggestions you have in the matter, since I don't know many people in web design.

Thanks!

Source: http://webdesign.livejournal.com/1584064.html