I haven’t done any web development before, my experience is in C,
Python, C++, some UI experience (Qt etc). I would like to build a
database driven website (which pretty much is like a web mail), key
objective is lower production time (development & testing), I would
highly prefer it to be AJAX based, scalability is not an issue rite
now, but could be later, should I go for LAMP (if I take ‘Python’ for
the ‘P’ , how helpful is my python knowledge?, assuming it to be
good) or RoR (Ruby seems to be familiar due to my Python knowledge).
Thanks in advance,
Krishna
Linux
Apache
MySQL
have nothing to do with Rails.
So you’ll either be doing LAMP (Python) or LAMR (Ruby on Rails).
If you need it completed quickly, you’re probably best off with Python
because you already know it. Of course, this is the Rails list, so we
are
all a bit biased towards Ruby. If you have the time, give Ruby a try.
Granted, if you’ve yet to use any Python web framework like Django, it’s
probably going to take the same amount of time learning Rails, so pick
one
and go.
Jason
one sucks…
the other sucks less…
(jk 
I probably should tell you something like “LEARN RoR!”, but ignoring
my religious beliefs for a minute, if you are good at python you
should
try Django.
Actually I know python to. But Ror is so much more mature than
TurboGears.
If you do the following:
Rails
Mysql (Or Oracle XE)
Plugins
ActiveScaffold
RoleRequirement
Tabnav/widgets
Then its very fast, and your “python” knowledge will help you learn
ruby very quickly.
Get you a few books. (I bought 6), and look thru a few tutorials.
I’ve even done my own generators.
You code can run in windows with mongrel as a service (Limited number
of users)
Or a mongrel-cluster behind nginx supporting the whole web. 
For a few glispe of my rails development check out my blog at