Ask HN: What web languages and frameworks would you recommend learning today?

I've been wanting to try out some new server-side web frameworks to expand my knowledge (Currently use the Laravel PHP Framework, and ExpressJS), but I've been struggling to find any consistent information about how relevant each framework/language is going to be right now, and in the future.

There is currently a lot of material on the internet saying how "Node.JS is dying use this", "Rails is dying use this", "Django is dying use this" etc.

1) Is there any truth behind these claims?

2) What languages/frameworks do you recommend (for the web) in 2015?

3) Have you ever switched to a different framework/language and never looked back? (why?) (For new projects, or migrating existing ones)

1) If I had to switch from current stack (Java/Play Framework/Spring) I'd look at one of those, they all seem super healthy and a lot of remote work uses one of the 3 (I'm a fan of working remotely).

2) Whichever language you enjoy working with and be productive in (I've heard good things about Laravel), don't always think the grass is greener. I'd say try out the Play Framework https://playframework.com/ You can code in either Scala or Java and it'd make a change from dynamic languages for you.

3) I switched from Java to Ruby and back again and found the sweet spot of both, I think I've improved more since I stopped worrying if I was missing out and just concentrated on being productive at work and solving problems I enjoy outside of work.

Not the answer you are looking for, but I've heard so much about Laravel that I've finally started to dive in. I do wish there were more L5 tutorials around, however.

Coming from a background where I did more or less everything myself from scratch, learning the ways of a framework isn't the easiest thing I've done in a while.

Back on to your topic, what you need to remember is that proponents of a new piece of software will always criticise its rivals. You also need to remember that a lot of people will just learn a single technology, never try the others, but declare the one they are using is the best. I see it a lot at work, people will say X language is far superior to Y language, and if they need to argue why they'll Google until they find something that agrees with what they're saying. This comic sums it up: http://i.imgur.com/ROS7lGT.jpg

Laravel is best learned from the documentation. Laravel 5 changed a lot, but most things from Laravel 4 still apply; I'd recommend looking at Dayle Rees' Code Bright along with the official docs http://daylerees.com/codebright

You're right about the criticism though, it's hard to find any quality comparison on the internet, that's why I've posted here, in hopes of finding a lesser biased comparison, especially from those who've changed their go-to framework (e.g. from Laravel to Rails, from Express to Django etc.)

1) I don't think any of those tools are dying, people are just sharing that other tools will work better in certain situations and each tool has it's place. I'm a fan of nodejs but I have found the dynamic typing and poor performance of JavaScript can hinder my recommendation when building a large, performance critical app.

2) The languages/frameworks I would recommend depends on what you want to build. The large amount of JavaScript libraries and its ability to work in the browser make me highly favour javascript and I have found that typescript provides a nice layer on top to provide sane typing and code auto completion for many of my needs. However, Typescript tools and the language still feel underdeveloped. I would use node to handle web requests and offload "heavier" work to c/rust/go if needed

3) I used to use c/c++ for a lot of my personal project but I have found tasks like managing memory can add unneeded complexity to the majority of my tasks. C still has it's place when certain requirements must be met.