As I start working on my super secret project (in true Web 3.14159 style you can't tell anything about it from the domain name) I have to make a decision on what technology to use. In my case, it's a battle between PHP and Ruby on Rails.

So what do I do here? My PHP skills are more advanced than my Rails skills, but I feel like I could easily pick up what I need to know in Rails because, well, programming knowledge of web-based languages is really transferable. But this project is supposed to be fun at the same time. I could build it in PHP, but that's not really much of a challenge. So I'm going to build it in Rails because I'll learn something new by building this application. In the end, it's all about learning for me. I've built a simple blog with Rails before, so it will be interesting for me to see if Rails lives up to the "productivity boost" that I (and others) have been claiming.

I also think I need to go and buy the revised version of the Agile Software Development for Rails book. Never hurts to have some dead-tree information about Rails.

So what is the site about? Can't tell you quite yet. I'll be finding some hosting and putting up a splash page shortly. I happen to think that it will be a very interesting application, and one that will generate a lot of fun for the people who choose to use it.