Found in 1 comment on Hacker News
psyklic · 2008-06-13 · Original thread
You might want to learn PHP first, especially if you're new to programming. Not only is PHP easy to learn, but it is also useful for quickly testing out simpler webpages.

By learning PHP, you'll also learn how web programming is traditionally done and the basics of how the web works. Once finished, you'll clearly see how Rails makes certain aspects of web programming easier, even for things like form validation.

I recommend a book like "PHP 6 and MySQL 5" which is very easy to read, and definitely type in the examples! http://www.amazon.com/PHP-MySQL-Dynamic-Web-Sites/dp/0321525....

Fresh book recommendations delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday.