Whoa, ASP.NET web forms is most definitely not the way to go if you're going to use the MS web stack. Go with ASP.NET MVC instead. Why? Several reasons:
1. MVC is essentially the pattern for modern web apps. That means the skills learned with it are general enough to be applicable with other languages/frameworks. Indeed, ASP.NET MVC steals liberally from Ruby on Rails, like most other modern MVC frameworks.
2. Web forms are an archaic answer to the problem. Web forms demand that every page have a 'code behind' file, which invariably mixes up display logic and business logic, which is a Very Bad Thing™. MVC is a hell of a lot easier to debug, maintain, edit, etc.
3. Web forms has its own, proprietary lifetime process that, well, sucks. It's a confusing chain of events that fire every time a page is loaded and rendered. It's not very web-like in that you can't just get a request, handle it, and spit results back to the screen. You need to figure out what load/render event to hook into.
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For web technologies, it's important to keep in mind the distinction between server side and client side. JavaScript is (largely) client side, meaning it runs in the browser after the page has been rendered. Everything else (ASP.NET MVC, PHP, Python, Ruby) runs on the server. So, the typical request/response pattern is:
Client -- request --> Server (handles request with whatever language is there) -- response --> Client (JavaScript does its stuff)
So, looking at it as a choice between JavaScript or something on the server is flawed, IMO. Your best bet is to pick a server side language and JavaScript.
So, with all that said, here's the modern language/framework options you have for server side (excluding Java proper, as I don't have experience with it):
C# (not VB, because VB is ugly shit): ASP.NET MVC
PHP: either Symfony 2, Laravel, or Zend Framework... others are crap
Python: Django
Ruby: Rails
w3schools is okay for starting out. They're a lot better than they used to be (see: http://www.w3fools.com).
If you pick PHP, hit me up in PMs. I can point you in the right direction for doing it for reals.
1. MVC is essentially the pattern for modern web apps. That means the skills learned with it are general enough to be applicable with other languages/frameworks. Indeed, ASP.NET MVC steals liberally from Ruby on Rails, like most other modern MVC frameworks.
2. Web forms are an archaic answer to the problem. Web forms demand that every page have a 'code behind' file, which invariably mixes up display logic and business logic, which is a Very Bad Thing™. MVC is a hell of a lot easier to debug, maintain, edit, etc.
3. Web forms has its own, proprietary lifetime process that, well, sucks. It's a confusing chain of events that fire every time a page is loaded and rendered. It's not very web-like in that you can't just get a request, handle it, and spit results back to the screen. You need to figure out what load/render event to hook into.
---
For web technologies, it's important to keep in mind the distinction between server side and client side. JavaScript is (largely) client side, meaning it runs in the browser after the page has been rendered. Everything else (ASP.NET MVC, PHP, Python, Ruby) runs on the server. So, the typical request/response pattern is:
Client -- request --> Server (handles request with whatever language is there) -- response --> Client (JavaScript does its stuff)
So, looking at it as a choice between JavaScript or something on the server is flawed, IMO. Your best bet is to pick a server side language and JavaScript.
So, with all that said, here's the modern language/framework options you have for server side (excluding Java proper, as I don't have experience with it):
C# (not VB, because VB is ugly shit): ASP.NET MVC
PHP: either Symfony 2, Laravel, or Zend Framework... others are crap
Python: Django
Ruby: Rails
w3schools is okay for starting out. They're a lot better than they used to be (see: http://www.w3fools.com).
If you pick PHP, hit me up in PMs. I can point you in the right direction for doing it for reals.
"I was thirsty for everything, but blood wasn't my style" - Live, "Voodoo Lady"
