I'd say a good reason to try writing a web app using other tools is because a) you don't know why because you have no experience and b) lots of other people are

I'd say a good reason to try writing a web app using other tools is because a) you don't know why because you have no experience and b) lots of other people are doing it. Isn't that enough reason? While languages like Ruby and Python were not designed 'with the web in mind', PHP wasn't designed _at all_. You won't understand this until you've had some reasonable experience with real programming languages. Enjoy!