I suppose to any newcomer my advice would be to go depth first into something like RoR or Django. Learn the framework and learn the language really well, then

I suppose to any newcomer my advice would be to go depth first into something like RoR or Django. Learn the framework and learn the language really well, then once you're comfortable building things well (after a year or 2) experiment with something else on the side. The hard part is figuring out what is worth learning, and for this a mentor can be priceless.