I want to start experimenting with all these different web frameworks that are available. I was wondering if they could all run in one machine at the same time?
I know that all my database services can all run at the same time, along with the Javascript frameworks, but what about something like Rails and Java applications? Can those play along with each other? Will Apache handle all of this for me?
Yes, since almost any language framework runs as normal code for the language, simply providing structure for applications you write, they can coexist well with other frameworks for the same or other languages. You can certainly run Rails and a Java framework on the same machine - you could even run Rails on JRuby and a Java application server
It sounds like you're just getting started programming. I would recommend learning some of the basics first. For instance, if you want to learn Ruby, try the Pickaxe book, write some simple scripts, then move on to a ruby web framework like Sinatra or Rails. You'll have a better understanding of the difference between a language and framework, how each is installed and run on your machine, etc.
The easiest way to begin experimenting is to use the development server that is included with the various frameworks and run the server on a different port (not 80). For Rails, this is done via:
ruby script\server
which will start a server on port 3000.
Other frameworks use other approaches. Most tutorials for Ruby and Python frameworks (with which I am most familiar) will include instructions on how to start a development server like this.
I don't see why not. It really depends on how the frameworks are deployed and in what containers. If they use separate containers (e.g. tomcat vs apache) you'll need to make sure that the containers are configured to use different ports since many web containers use 80 or 8080.
If you plan on running them all in the same container (e.g. Apache) then I would think they'd be fine, since each one can be treated as a separate web application and deployed to a different location in your document root.
For the most part, it'll probably be trial and error. I don't know much about how Rails interacts with Java, but I've run Grails and Java applications together easily myself with few problems.
I run Rails, PHP, and Java with one Apache server. Except for what felt like a ton of apache config munging when I set it all up, it's been fine. I'm not much of a sysadmin, so it took me a few days to get everything running right.
PHP, Java and Rails all have environments that let you run independent servers and save complex configuration.
I run Rails and ASP.NET MVC on the same Machine and I just set my local servers to run on different ports. But usually the default setup (e.g. Rails on port 3000) will not conflictwith each other, plus each framework usually has its own way to run (LAMP, Webrick, Montgrel...) so you should be fine.