Best language for large web applications?
 

The other thread about Java prompted me to start this one.

So for busy websites, let's say 5 million unique visitors and 50 million pages a month, which is the best language for your web app?

Python?
Java?
PHP?
Other?

Also, would be helpful if you could say how easy/difficult your choice is to learn too!

PHP & ASP.NET would be your best choices in my opinion.

Python is also a good choice. Lots of really mission critical sites use python. Huge learning curve from what I understand, though. I don't know any python myself.

If you're really going to be thinking about "large" web applications, the language used for the web frontend is the least of your concerns. Any of the languages mentioned can easily handle the traffic that you gave without batting an eyelid (if they had eyelid to bat).

As for which language is easiest to learn, languages are easy. Programming concepts take the longest to learn, adapting those into the specific syntax of a language is fairly trivial.

I agree.

Lots of large sites use different languages.

YouTube uses python, Hi5 uses Java, Microsoft uses... well, you can guess.

PHP can scale just as well as those other languages. You just need to correct hardware and the correct know how.


I'd still stick with PHP if i was aiming for 5 million unique visitors a day. I've seen it scaled up to that level, and PHP programmers are a dime a dozen - you usualy just have to train them a little.

If I had to go with a runner up, I'd say python - simply because it doesn't require tomcat.

Anytime you have to use Java, you have to use the java virtual machine. Yes, there's way to tweak it out so it's cheaper and quicker to run, but you're still not running in native. It requires another instance to run after you've compiled it to byte code. So you've pretty much lost the only advantage that Java had, which is that it's not a scripting language.

Idealy, if I were to create a site that was expecting 5 million daily,(150million monthly) - I'd use all three languages, along with Memcache, Apache (stripped down to something similar to yapache), and MySQL 5. But the bulk of it would be PHP.


Just as a quick edit:
It's funny that you ask which is easier to learn, as they all use different syntax.

PHP and Python are quick to pick up, Java takes a little know how on how to set up your tool chain, and again, it's jut another language. You can pick it up just as easily as any other language.

And like I said, they're all different styles of syntax.

I personally know, and have used in production, all three languages. I think the most difficult was Python, only because I wasn't used to that method of 'elegant' syntax.

Some great answers everyone :)

Python does appeal to me somewhat - maybe it will be the second language I learn, after PHP :)

Facebook also uses PHP. Ad they must get more than 5 million uniques a day surely?

Like Salathe said, it doesn't really matter which one you use, if you use it right.

This is for the most part true, but I know from experience that C++ is a lot harder than C#!

You probably want to look into load balancers if you think you're going to get that many hits daily....