[Sicarius]

So I am looking to get into web development, I am finding desktop dev boring. I was looking at PHP but just hate it. I hate its syntax, its name, its creator, its logo, anything it runs on😭. I know Java and C# so I was naturaly looking at using either of the two for web dev in conjunction with JS, and was wondering what ASP.net is like (MVC5) to develop with especially for web dev noobies?

[Crypto™]

Frankly, I hate ASP.net. I find it superbly clunky. I'm very opinionated though. (Note: I have not dived very deep into ASP.net, so I may be wrong)

My personal opinion, if you want to build website backends, you should look into Ruby on Rails, or my personal favorite, Node.js (JavaScript on the serverside). If you want to really do full stack web dev, you'll have to learn Javascript regardless, so being able to use it on both the frontend and the backend will save you the trouble of learning two syntactically different languages. Albeit, there are coding practices you will have to get used to in Node.js. Namely callbacks, modules, and requiring.

Both of those backend frameworks are widely used in the professional world. Also, an alternative to Rails is Sinatra. With Node.js, it's more of the language than the framework, so you have a variety to choose from. My personal favorite: Express, Geddy, Sails, Compound, Total, Locomotive, Koa, Flatiron, and more. There are also some pretty incredible full stack frameworks (they take care of everything from backend, to database, to frontend) such as MEAN, (not a framework as much as a development stack comparable to LAMP) Meteor, (this one is pretty amazing, and it's on my "to learn" list) Sleek, Mojito, etc.

In case you can't tell, I'm a huge fan of Node.js.

[Dennis]

I am absolutely an ASP.NET ( & C# ) guy. It offers literally everything you could possibly need. You will certainly not regret it. The company I work for and my own company are affiliated with Microsoft so I guess I am kinda opinionated as well.
Anyway, you would build a typical backend in C#. If you need concurrency, you can easily go with SignalR. Personally I use knockout ( get it off nuget ) as it works perfectly with ASP.NET MVC. You can even bind backend models with frontend knockout.

It's very easy to dive into as well if you are familiar with C#.

[PAЯADOX]

If you know C# already, you really can't go wrong with ASP.net. Especially MVC. The possibilities are endless and it's pretty easy once you catch the hang of it. If you do decide not to use ASP.net, I would still recommend you using an MVC framework.

[Exemplification]

Just give it a shot. There really isn't anything you can lose by trying it, even if you decide you hate it after a few months you still have that experience that will contribute to any future proceedings.

I absolutely adore ASP.NET, I dived right into it without any C# or .NET experience and found it and the community to be welcoming (far more than the PHP or Rails communities). I teach a short class that focuses on C# & ASP.NET for beginners with little or no experience, most people pick it up very quickly and even some of the ones who have trouble come back to say that they have earned Microsoft Certification a few months down the road.

I would suggest watching one or more of the Jump Start videos on Microsoft Virtual Academy, the one on Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications is wonderful. (You will need a Microsoft account to view the video). Watching that gives you a bit of an overview and may assist you in your decision

[Sicarius]

Thanks guys, had a very quick look at it and it seems quite nice, and not too hard either. I have looked at node.js, and may give it a go. If I enjoy web dev I'll probs learn a few different langs/frameworks anyway. I also saw another JS framework, I believe it was called meteor, that looked awsome.

[Crypto™]

Thanks guys, had a very quick look at it and it seems quite nice, and not too hard either. I have looked at node.js, and may give it a go. If I enjoy web dev I'll probs learn a few different langs/frameworks anyway. I also saw another JS framework, I believe it was called meteor, that looked awsome.

Meteor is a really sexy full stack framework. It takes care of database connections, and data binding too if I remember correctly. Basically, it's one app to rule them all. It's built on top of Node.js, so there's that, and they also have free project hosting as a subdomain of meteor.com