Web infastructure for learning purposes?

Question

I come from a traditional programming background by which I mean C, Java, C#, C++ and a little python and VBA.

Now I'm trying to create a small CRUD application for the purpose of taking a form and turning it into an online form and database for later querying.

My initial thinking seems to lead me to Ruby on Rails given the fact that there is a lot of good stuff about it on the internet and my greatest strength is that I pick up languages fairly quickly so the fact that I have never seen Ruby code until 10 mins ago is no big deal. Now having said that I'm looking for cheap infrastructure to a) host an svn repository and a web server to allow me to develop and learn what I need and eventually deploy.

In short;

1) Where can I go for this cheap infastracture for the purposes of learning and eventual deployment?

2) Where should I go for infrastructure to host and SVN repository? (I haven't coded in a while, but will be needing this for a multitude of things and am not in a place to run this off a home desktop/server)

3) If you don't agree with my Ruby on Rails conclusion, what would you recommend and why?

Answer 1

Is SVN mandatory? If you don't mind trying something like git, you can get a small application up and running using heroku in no time. And, for free.

There might be a few stumbling blocks at first–getting your local development environment all set up–but you'll be able to get going fairly quickly.

Answer 2

unfuddle has great SVN and GIT hosting for free, you actually get private repos with SSH. If you haven't given GIT a try, I would. SVN was the first source control I used, but after messing with git a little I immediately switched, it is SO much faster.