At the risk getting flamed to a crisp for even suggesting the language or the title, I'd recommend PHP for Dummies and the companion book, everyday projects in

At the risk getting flamed to a crisp for even suggesting the language or the title, I'd recommend PHP for Dummies and the companion book, everyday projects in PHP, as a starting point for a completely new web developer. It's highly digestible, covers many basic concepts (HTML, loops, control flow, variables, sessions, databases, oop), and has a number of good projects to walk through. While I've moved on to significantly more advanced topics (Python, functional programming), it took me a long way and laid a pretty solid foundation for the future. They actually went relatively deep in the details of how a website works. BTW - I'd avoid ASP.Net for dummies. Relatively little code contained in that one...