Modern web developers, for the most part, only think in terms of php. Perl was at one time big, but we are seeing less and less of it. Most all new websites and software are in php.

Is php the only solution for web development? At one time, I thought it was. Sure there is ASP, but I personally think it's as bad as the M$ OS.

php is a great programming language for web development. I embeds into HTML very well, and is very easy to get software made with it installed. But php has out grown what it was designed for. It wasn't designed to make large website frameworks and software. php is great for scripting. But have you ever tried programming Object Oriented code with it?

To say the least, programming OO code in php is, relatively speaking, hard. php was designed for small scripts such as an email form or hit counter. When you get to making large websites, it becomes a real pain to work with. Everything gets messy very easily.

Is ASP better for larger websites? NO! I dare say not. Then what?

Two main ones. Ruby and Python.

I personally haven't worked with Ruby, but it has a development framework called Rails. Ruby it self was not designed specifically for web development (as php was). But it is a very object oriented language. Very clean syntax (if not the best... but that's a matter of opinion). And it has very powerfull features.

Python is something I have worked with. Like Ruby, it wasn't specifically designed for web development. But it has loads of libraries to make it easy to develop websites. Far more in fact than ruby and php. Python is also a very Object Oriented programming language with very clean syntax.

Programming with python is very refreshing when coming from php. Especially if you have tried OO in php. With the way you can piece everything together makes creating large websites much more enjoyable.

If you are wanting to get started into programming with Ruby or Python, check out Rails and Django (a very very cool python framework). Both have lots of great features and documentation on how to get started.

So where does that put php? Is it still usefull? Yes, I think so. It is still the easiest to distribute code made with it and is, as I stated before, great for small scripts for websites.

What ever you decide to do, stick with php or try python and ruby, happy coding!

Joey