Web Site Frameworks

My current project has me working in Coldfusion, which is very different from ASP.NET. The most fundamental difference is that it doesn't try to use controls and objects in a codebehind. Coldfusion makes it easy to run queries and output results but mixes database code in with HTML. On one hand, pages are in one file and database access is very easy. On the other hand, the form is strongly typed and you can easily modify page elements in code but the viewstate is quirky but too useful to turn off. They're quite different and I don't know which I like better.

Given only those two choices, I'd go with ASP.NET. Subsonic takes away a lot of the pain of the database access and it's just really handy to be able to say "DropDownList1.Items[1].Selected = true". I think the Coldfusion / ASP method may have more potential with an awesome IDE that's realizes that it's creating a web app (make it easy to get to the querystring / session / database). A hybrid method may be good, something like using HTML controls with properties but that don't get persisted across postbacks.

Rails has a completely different paradigm where you don't create pages, you create controllers and views. I think the best thing about this is that all of the code concerning an object is in one place. Each page has its own view that has very little code. The distinction seems to get murky if you want AJAX because you need javascript code in the view. Also, the view and controller are loosely connected with only an implied contract and unit tests, so I don't know if this is the best way to go either. It probably has the most potential with an awesome IDE, but it doesn't have corporate backing which means that IDE isn't coming anytime soon.