Browser-based game - Which framework to choose?

Question

I'm starting to develop a browser-based game (and by this I mean text-based, no Flash or similar stuff on it) and I'm struggling to decide on which development framework to use.

As far as requirements are concerned, the most important thing that I can think of right now is the ability to translate it to several languages. A good object-relational mapping and a way to generate forms from logical objects would also be very good, as I've noticed that I always spend lots of time solving the problems that come up when I change any of those things.

The programming language is kind of unimportant. I have some experience in PHP and C#, but I don't mind, and I would even like to use this as an excuse, learning some new thing like Python or Ruby. What I do want is something with a good and thriving community and lots of samples and tutorials online to help me.

Answer 1

I would reccomend sticking to what you know - PHP is more than capable.

That's true of course, but:

I don't mind, and I would even like to use this as an excuse, learning some new thing like Python or Ruby.

Then writing a browser game is an excellent opportunity to do this. Learning something new is never wrong and learning an alternative to PHP can never hurt (eh, Jeff?). While neither Ruby on Rails nor Django are especially useful for writing games, they're still great. We had to write a small browser game in a matter of weeks for a project once and Rails worked charms. On the other hand, all successful browser games have enormous work loads and if you want to scale well you either have to get good hardware and load balancing or you need a non-interpreted framework (sorry, guys!).