Overwhelmed! An Overview of Web Development

I'm a scrub who's slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of web development, simply because there are so many ways to accomplish the same thing. For example, these are some of the questions I struggle with: what language should I choose to develop the backend? What framework would suit that language best? Do I develop the front-end from the ground up or use something like Bootstrap to streamline it? How do I decide on what type of DB and server to use? How do I make sure the app is secured and fully scalable?

Some background on me: I've worked on fundamental programming for about a year, and just finished a quarter in which I did some basic JSP/Servlet and Ruby on Rails. Although I feel like I have a fundamental grasp on how web development works, I still feel lost when I hear people talking about all the different ways and tools to make web apps (like Node or Cake) and I want to know how they come to the conclusion that this or that technology is best to use for their purposes.

I know that this is pretty damn silly, and you're probably shaking your head, but it's worth a shot just to see what you guys think:

So -- Can anyone out there give me a good overview of the most common industry-standard/accepted/modern/sustainable ways to build fully functioning web apps from the ground up? (And I really mean from the ground up, from day one to deployment) In your experience, what technologies and techniques have you seen as the most successful and streamlined? What do you guys personally think about Rails? Is it worth it to go headfirst into RoR, or should I also work on learning other frameworks and languages along with it, like PHP?

Also, do you guys have any good recommendations for tutorials/reads on web development and architecture in general, independent of any particular language? How did each and every one of you learn web development and how have your preferred methods changed over the years?

t h a n k s