I started programming in january of this year and have covered a lot of ground. I have learnt javascript, ruby on rails, html, css, jquery and every now and then i like to try out some clojure but i will really get into that in the middle of next yr. I really didnt like rails and prefer using netbeans with pure javaScript, html and css, i just feel like i have more control. I really like javascript, but when it comes to sever side programming i have a problem.......for my level of experience i just feel like server side js will not be a good fit yet as it is still not as mature/user friendly as php or ruby on rails.
What server side language should i invest in, should i learn php? There is so much info on source code on php. I know that there is node.js and emerging frameworks like geddy.js but i need something more user friendly....or am i just being a woos.I would really like some help on this.
Thanks in advance
PS. Update: Thanks all for advice, i have settled on python and web2py framework. I decided between django and web2py by doing a couple of simple tutorials and preferred web2py by a huge margin.
Not sure why you don't like rails, but you might want to try the newly released "Rails for Zombies" tutorials by Envy Labs: http://railsforzombies.org/. Or if you like books instead of online stuff, check out Agile Web Development with Rails
As ben states, sinatra is nice for smallish stuff.
A few things to choose from, broken down by language and order of their complexity/learning curve:
Ruby
Python
PHP
EDIT: I removed my comment about php and added in some PHP specifics. Personally I started with Symfony but it is rather complex. Code Igniter would be a good starting place if you want to learn a PHP framework.
If you like ruby as programming language, but find rails to be just too much to take in it once, I'd recommend trying Sinatra. It's also a ruby-based web framework, but it's a lot simpler than rails, and offers you a lot more control over how you want to set things up. For smaller projects, it's often a much better fit than Rails.