I was in the same boat as you, and I swore I was going to learn Rails - and just 'go w/ it' -so I built an app in Rails..but when it came time to deploy -- my h

I was in the same boat as you, and I swore I was going to learn Rails - and just 'go w/ it' -so I built an app in Rails..but when it came time to deploy -- my host only supported a specific version of Ruby -- and I wasn't about to pay $50 a month to host a hobby so to speak... Then I decided I was going to try and duplicate it in php --which php is extremely ugly--UNLESS you're laravel. I found laravel which I am getting pretty darn good at, and I absolutely love it! It's Rails for php and has taught me GOOD design principles for php(instead of spaghetti code, like how to use namespacing and build my own packages, and their's a strong community for it -- I highly recommend going to #laravel on freenode(irc) -- for help when you need it.