You could look at some php frameworks, i don't use 'em but some of them out before the rails way of thinking codeigniter, smarty templating, but then there is c

You could look at some php frameworks, i don't use 'em but some of them out before the rails way of thinking codeigniter, smarty templating, but then there is cakephp which takes a rails approach. You should learn rails, but it will require learning ruby. That said learn rails, start with a small project. Something that helped me learn how some of the rails magic works was to install plugins, then hack/mod them and read the source code. You'll pickup all sorts of neat tricks and tips. Remember if you having trouble doing something or even wrapping your head around it, google around as chances are someone blogged about it or explains it. To answer your question, the only thing that rails doesn't do well is multiple uploading thing, but you can always farm out uploading work to merb.