Ruby On Rails, Ajax, Scriptaculous, Etc.

[shigajet 0]

Since Web 2.0 has become one of the top buzzwords nowadays, I'm curious about the new languages: Ruby (on Rails), AJAX and scriptaculous are several methods programmers use to make web applications. I'd like to build some applications, but the trouble is where to start. How easy is it to make a web app in the first place? Which programs/languages have a learning curve that's not so steep?

[fslog 0]

Yeah Ruby and rails is great for a new programmer trying to come into web application development.
But my favourite language is python and there are lots of great frameworks to work with. There is Django, Pylons, Turbogears, web.py, etc.
If you want to create some kind of CMS then do try out django. It has a cool auto generated admin interface. You just specify the models(database schema) and it automatically generates a generic administrator interface which can be fine tuned later.