The most popular programming language today is Java, followed closely by C, and then C++, PHP, JavaScript, Python, C#, Perl, SQL, and Ruby. This is a statistic based on large amount of data, which takes into account the job trends, total number of projects, books sold, Web searches, open source projects, discussion sites, and other criteria. However, not all of the above-mentioned are web-programming languages as some of them are mostly used to develop desktop software rather than web applications.

PHP

PHP is an open source scripting language, which is widely used for developing dynamic web pages. Amongst its various advantages are:

• Free: the language is distributed under the Open Source License, which allows the users to download and use the language for free
• Easy to learn: PHP is extremely easy to learn as it has simple and clear syntax
• Compatibility: it can run on various platforms and used on Linux, Windows, or Mac servers
• Interfaces well with MySQL: many web applications are database driven and MySQL is one of the most popular relational database query languages
• Popular: its tremendous popularity translates into wide availability of source code, great number of discussion groups, tutorials, and documentation

Amongst the disadvantages of the PHP are the facts that it is not a “true” object oriented programming language and since it is a scripting language, it cannot perform as quickly as C++ or C. Another disadvantage is the fact that there are some security issues, associated with PHP programming.

Perl

Perl is a general purpose, dynamic programming language, developed in 1987. Considered one of the original scripting languages, it has numerous advantages, some of which are listed below:

• Portability: Perl runs on all platforms and distributions are available for all popular operating systems
• Easier to learn compared to Java or C
• Comes with excellent string manipulation operators and works with regular expressions
• It is Object Oriented and has a great set of libraries, which allows developers to build larger applications

Some of the disadvantages of Perl are the fact that the code is often hard to read, debug, and maintain, and the language is very forgiving, which means that there are far fewer rules for laying out the programs.

Java

Java is an Object Oriented programming language, which was developed by Sun Microsystems (currently a subsidiary of Oracle). The Java Servlet API is the technology that allows the programmers to develop scalable and robust server-side applications and this language comes with a great number of advantages:

• Portability: the Java programs are “write once, run anywhere”
• Powerful: the Java Servlets talk directly to the Web server and are far more powerful that the CGI applications
• Safety: the Java Servlets are extremely secure
• Java is a true Object Oriented programming language and suitable for building robust and large scale web applications
• Java is ideal for developing multithreaded and distributed computing applications

Java is not an easy language to learn and not ideal for small and simple web applications.

Python

Python is an interpreter, Object Oriented, and extensible scripting language, which was conceptualized in the late 80s of the last century as an improvement and continuation of the ABC programming language. Python 2.0 was released in October 2000 and Python 3.0 in December 2008, and both of them introduced various improvements, mainly in the developing process itself. Some of the strong points of Python are:

• It is easy to learn as it has simple syntax (using tabbing and spacing)
• Free since it is released under the OSI-approved open source license
• It is extendable since it supports classes
• Has a great standard library and flexible module system
• Solid community, which translates into fast support and great number of source code available

The main disadvantage of Python stems from the fact that it is an interpreted language, which results in sometime slower execution, especially when memory-intense and computational operations are involved.

Ruby

Ruby is a general-purpose Object Oriented programming language, which was developed in Japan in the 1990s and influenced by numerous other languages such as Perl, Pike, Lisp, and others. Its popularity increased after the release of the Ruby on Rails web application framework, which facilitates rapid application development. Some of the advantages of Ruby are:

• It allows for rapid application development
• Has a clear and forgiving syntax
• Unparalleled productivity
• Extensive standard library
• Portability

Some of the disadvantages of Ruby are the lack of complete online documentation and slower execution speeds compared to some of the other programming languages such as C++, PHP, and Perl.