From: John Joyce <dangerwillrobinsondanger@...>
Date: 2008-01-05T08:26:37+09:00
Subject: Re: How to put a Ruby website online without rails

as far as the language you choose, it all depends on what you want to  
do and how much you want to do.
If you just need some simple, quick things, PHP might be a better  
choice to get started and make things work.
If you are interested in more complex things, you will want to use  
some existing framework in any language to help things be structured  
and easier to maintain and add to.
The problem is, without experiencing several frameworks in several  
languages, it is difficult to compare them or even choose the right  
one for a particular project.
The web hosting provider you use, and features you get for the paid  
service level will determine some things for you.
All frameworks and languages will have a learning curve.

But again, if you just need some little things here and there, PHP  
might be the best approach in the beginning, since many of it's  
functions are quick, one-trick-ponies, and PHP is widely supported  
and easy to get started with for web development.
But if you need a lot of features, spend some time investigating a  
language/framework combination that will work for you.
It all depends on the specifics.
If you need to do a lot of sophisticated things, you might find PHP  
quickly becomes tedious to work with. Then look into Ruby or Python  
based frameworks that save you a lot of work in the long-run.

Generally speaking, web sites are not set-it-and-forget-it, they  
often require regular updates and changes.