And so we return to the age old question - but with a few twists. This morning, I searched and read up on which web development language to learn first. I'm thinking Ruby, Python, or perhaps PHP.

But I have a few questions before deciding.

Background: I'm a year into C++ (through school), but want to get into web development. I have all summer to commit to one language, learn it, do some projects, get up some websites, and so on.

Now my questions (and these are assuming that I should choose between Ruby, Python, and PHP - if I should choose a different language, let me know.):

1. I hope to use whichever language I learn for websites/web apps. Some of the threads on stackoverflow suggested Python was the best overall language, but others were unanimous that Ruby was best specifically for web development. For a first language suited towards web development, which language do you recommend, and why?
2. This might tie into the first question, but which language looks most promising for future work, future personal projects, and basically the future in general? I'm just a freshman in college. Ideally, the language I choose would be on the rise, community-wise and opportunity-wise. (One reason I'm leaning towards Ruby is that it seems a lot of the newer tech startups/successes are using it.)