I'd suggest trying out Google App Engine: the SDK runs locally on your box, but it is very easy to publish it to their servers for no charge. I think it might

I'd suggest trying out Google App Engine: the SDK runs locally on your box, but it is very easy to publish it to their servers for no charge. I think it might be a good starting point because it is so self contained, one of the toughest things with starting a new language is that so much of the documentation seems like an argument over the "right" way to do things or which library to use to perform some function. With GAE it is all in one place, the documentation they offer is solid and because the environment is so set it is easy to ask and get help. http://code.google.com/appengine/ http://code.google.com/appengine/