Why no love for PHP? 
coglethorpe: PHP has a few downsides, everything from poor naming conventions to security vulnerabilities.  People around these parts are always looking for the cleanest solutions to their problems and the latest methods available.  PHP's relative age and problems make it neither.That said, I coded my first startup in PHP.  It's dead simple to make a dynamic web page with PHP, but it's also dead simple to create a huge mess.  In that sense, PHP reminds me of C.  It's pretty simple to write an app in C, but there are 1,000 pitfalls.Just like with C, there are definitely talented coders out there who can make PHP behave correctly.  Sadly, they are a minority.  Many of them move on to other languages and frameworks.I've since moved on to Ruby (on Rails) as well as Python.  Both languages offer simplicity and power.  Rails, in spite of being the Dane Cook of frameworks, makes it extremely easy to create a web application.