Perl is more fun Java's often not worth it PHP's a dumbed down version of an old perl Perl has CPAN (pro-CPAN points below) you know whatever you need to do can be done (except maybe hard realtime embedded but even there..) which is good for when you have growing function sets amazing glue growing language esp. with parrot which will take over the world etc. Perl supports professionals as well as newbies while PHP well anyway. separation of design and html possible cross-platform leverages native code via fast modules in C (or whatever) automatic building on different platforms line noise is a figment of your imagination easy to use sophisticated algorithms slowness is likewise a figment of your bad coding skills etc. mod_perl with Apache rocks #### huge dynamic & growing high general quality level search.cpan.org usefulness with issue tracking automatic installation on command line (maybe not for windows.. vis a vis unreleased ppms) other advanced languages have started to flatter it by copying idea less reinventing the wheel many objects supported between modules get modules separately which are in later perl versions wide selection of paradigms for templating, data retrieval, etc.