WebDevelopment

I decided to try and get into web development and now need to pick a language for serverside programming. I'm still more or less a newbie programmer who only knows Java, X/HTML and CSS and I would prefer not to use Java as it is... well, you know.

I learned some assembly for the heck of it, so complexity is not an issue as long as the language is commonly supported by hosts (sometime the customer may pick a host by himself..) and performs faster.

I would also appreciate added reasoning as to why you suggest the language that you do.

Thanks

Oh great, another thread primed and ready to take shits on PHP. The only seriously awful and annoying problem about PHP is its Unicode support. Beyond that it's one of the best options for web development. The same features that enable novice programmers to make awful websites allow experienced programmers to quickly prototype and develop web projects. PHP is already a framework and a templating system. There is no ontological reason not to use it, only particular cases where another option would be better.

Like this one, for example. I would recommend that you start out with Java, since you are already familiar with the language. PHP's learning curve would be narrow for you, but you may as well build upon your existing knowledge.