For a few years now, I've been dabbling in web development. Nothing serious, as I do not work as a programmer, I am just a hobbyist. Sometimes I make a web site for a relative, family friend, or a friend of a friend. Most of my experience is with ruby (sinatra, jekyll, but not so much rails), HTML, minimal javascript and CSS.

My questions are simple. I am not asking for anyone to recommend me a programming language. I am just curious what people use and how they go about their development process.

1. What programming language do you use to develop web sites and web applications?
2. What lead you to choosing this programming language?
3. What tools do you use to improve efficiency? (IDE/editor, testing framework, build system, deployment, etc)

EDIT:
I am not asking if web development will make money. Or how to make money with web development. This is mostly an inquiry about what you like to use, personally. If you "pick the right tool for the job", share what you used for a project that comes to mind.

I haven't had to do a website for a while, but if the need came up again I would choose the stack based on what the website needs to do.

LinuxQuestions.org and LinuxExchange.org weren't written using the same tools, for example. In both cases, the software used to implement the website (vBulletin and OSQA) were chosen first. vBulletin is PHP and OSQA is Django (which is a Python framework similar to Ruby on Rails).

Insofar as possible, at this point I wouldn't "write" a web site. You don't have to do that anymore. Automated tools exist which can do the entire job for you, including the back-end. There's no money in it anymore, either.

(And the same is very-quickly becoming true of "app" development, as well, given that most "apps" are de-facto "web sites in drag." Good thing that users don't pay for them ...)

Yeah I haven't done a web site for anyone for quite some time either. I mostly just update my existing statically generated web site that uses jekyll. I have the time to waste tinkering, as I do not work, I am disabled. If I did work though, I probably wouldn't bother with my own blog anymore.

Yes, and the idea of "statically-generated websites" are too-often overlooked! There are plenty of script tools that can use templates and databases (say ...) to auto-generate a series of .html files to suit almost any purpose (as well as the necessary Apache and/or "nginix" directives necessary to smooth-away the .html prefix, thereby making the site look "cool" and "modern").

"Yes, Virginia," the original concept of "a web site" ... as a series of static files served to you by a relatively-tiny program called "an HTTP server," is still extremely useful and relevant. (Not to mention, "blisteringly(!) efficient.")