Thanks for the answer EsperZebrah. I should probably add that I'm not looking for a 9-5 job as such. Rather I would like to learn how to make my own software products be they Wordpress plugins, real web startups or apps for various niches (seo and finance would be two). Of course, knowing how to code is a nice fallback strategy if I end up 40 and broke or need some freelance income quickly.
Just by browsing Elance I see far, far more PHP jobs than other languages. However, my understanding is that PHP has A LOT of indian/philipines competition and most of the jobs on Elance are probably just very simple small script projects.
Front end is not really my interest, I don't have the artistic talent, but I understand how Javascript is very useful. HTML and CSS I already know ok.
The thing is, I can pretty easily see the potential for my own projects from learning PHP, but I would like to eventually join or create a real web startup. To my understanding, Ruby would be the best choice for that. On the other hand, there's a massive market for Wordpress solutions which speaks to PHP.
I suppose I could learn both. Python has been recommended before by other people to make tools easily, but how much more difficult is Ruby and does it have limitations compared to Python?
Another thing is, if PHP has messy code as you say, will it make it more difficult to learn Python/Ruby?
Just by browsing Elance I see far, far more PHP jobs than other languages. However, my understanding is that PHP has A LOT of indian/philipines competition and most of the jobs on Elance are probably just very simple small script projects.
Front end is not really my interest, I don't have the artistic talent, but I understand how Javascript is very useful. HTML and CSS I already know ok.
The thing is, I can pretty easily see the potential for my own projects from learning PHP, but I would like to eventually join or create a real web startup. To my understanding, Ruby would be the best choice for that. On the other hand, there's a massive market for Wordpress solutions which speaks to PHP.
I suppose I could learn both. Python has been recommended before by other people to make tools easily, but how much more difficult is Ruby and does it have limitations compared to Python?
Another thing is, if PHP has messy code as you say, will it make it more difficult to learn Python/Ruby?