What's a good web framework and/or tool for a software developer?

Question

I'd like to make a website, it's not a huge project, but I'm a bit out of the web design loop. The last time I made a website was probably around 2002. I figure the web frameworks and tools have come a ways since then. It's mostly the design aspect that I'd like it to make easier. I can do the backend language in any language.

My question is: What are some tools or web frameworks that make the design aspect of making a website easier. It could be a framework in php/python/ruby.

As far as tools go, free/open source is preferred, but I wouldn't mind looking at good commercial alternatives.

Answer 1

You'll get many different subjective answers for your question, but as for me I would recommend django. It is flexible unlike CMS and the admin saves you alot of pain.

Answer 2

For PHP, I like the CMS Drupal and have found it to be very fast in getting a site up and running. Drupal also has a ton of modules to do almost anything you want. It is also very customizable (although that takes a little reading to figure out how to do it).

Ruby's de facto standard web framework is Ruby on Rails. It's a straight web framework, not a CMS like Drupal, but it doesn't take very much work to get a simple site up and running. It uses convention over configuration to be that simple, so you've got to learn the conventions to really understand what's going on.

I haven't used a Python web framework (except the one I wrote back in college), but I've heard good things about Django.

If you have experience with Java, there's a Groovy framework called Grails that is similar to Ruby on Rails, but runs on Java servers.

Answer 3

I once played around with CodeIgniter for a couple of weeks and found it pretty easy and fast to jump into.

Check out this list of PHP frameworks: http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/11/20-great-php-framework-for-developers.html

Joomla is also said to be amazing, although that's more of a Content Management System than just a framework. But it makes the design of the site really simple.

Answer 4

It really depends on a couple things:

1. What are you familiar with? You indicated that you've done some web development in the past. What did you use? If you were using classic ASP, then learning ASP.NET should be less of a jump for you.
2. What are you trying to create? If all you need are static HTML files with a tiny bit of functionality, you could try learning PHP as it's pretty quick and easy to get going. If you need light database access, then maybe Ruby on Rails will be your cup of tea.

With that being said, I'd recommend the following in no particular order (just because I've tried them and they're all pretty decent):

• Ruby on Rails
• ASP.NET / ASP.NET MVC
• PHP

Answer 5

django on Google App Engine gets you free(up to a point) and scalable hosting