Java all the way. PHP is an invitation to messy and spaghetti code, no incentive to modular programming at all.
No separation between business and presentation code.
Basically it's very JSP 0.92 without the capability to use Java beans.

I don't know if this will help or not. I've never used or had the desire to learn PHP, but since I haven't I can't say that it's worse or better than Java. Now, I do know a lot of Java(not compared to wenting though!). In Java, you can create desktop and web applications, which I'm not sure you can do the same with PHP. I've written some pretty powerful web applications and some powerful desktop apps. Java is cross platform so you can use it on any OS.

Another thing, Java is OO and most colleges and universities are switching from C++ to teach Java. If your young, Java would be a good one to learn if your interested in learning important concepts and intend on a programming job.

PHP4 has been OO. PHP5 is OO, and in much better standing for OO than PHP4. PHP5 contains many of the same security in OO as Java does now (public,private,etc etc). You can use the Zend encoder to encode your PHP code, so thats not really an issue either.

I'm partial to the license provided by PHP as opposed to SUN as well.

For desktop applications though, I'd have to go with Java.

That's my two cents.

depends on what do you want to do with it ..
i am not a jave/php guru but i can say that java is a complex progamming language ...

instead php is only a "web " language .... it suits only for web programming ...

I'm a "professional web developer". For over 10 years, I've developed browser-based, database applications. I started my programming career writing client-server apps with PL/B. I moved to CGI web apps using PL/B. Then I moved to ASP/VBScript and SQL Server for web dev. When ASP.NET came on the scene, I barfed, then I moved to PHP/MySQL. I really, really, love PHP compared to what I've known before. I've never worked with Java web dev.

Here's one thing I can tell you. As a "PHP programmer", many people won't consider you a "real programmer"--even though the langauge is very OO. In my PHP apps, I write classes, I use inheritance, I interact with external libraries and databases, and most all the other programming constructs used by all programmers. But for whatever reason, people see that you develop web applications, and they think "Oh, you create websites...your an HTML guy." (Can you tell I'm frustrated by this?! )

Java will allow you to make more money and as stated earlier, you can write desktop apps as well as web apps with Java. As a Java programmer you can be a "real programmer".

I don't think the Java guys can argue that PHP--for a beginner--will be much faster to get the hang of. I also think a beginner will be able to figure out how to configure the server environment for PHP quicker than JSP. PHP can also be used to do your server shell scripting. I enjoy the fact I can use the same language to write my web apps as I use to write advanced shell scripts to manage my hosting business. (To my knowledge, you can't use Java to write *nix shell scripts....am I wrong? It has happened before...once. )

I think the fact that Oracle now includes PHP in their products speak strongly that PHP is a respectable path.

I'm not saying PHP is better than Java. They both have some reasons why you may choose one over the other.

By the way, ASP.NET for web dev has some of the same benefits of the Java path in that the languages you use to develop ASP.NET apps can also be used to develop desktop apps. It's "real programming". Most people use either VB.NET or C# to write ASP.NET apps. Those 2 languages can also be used to develop Window's services and rich desktop apps. PS: I hate .NET

While Java is an excellent language, (My formal schooling was 100% java) I will only program web-apps in php. Its faster to learn, easier to find resources for, and can be just as "clean" as java if you know what your doing. In most cases you are probably going to be using php for queries, input/output processing, and dynamic results. Well its not like there's a lot to that stuff so it would be hard to make "spaghetti-code" if you tried.

-B

Flash, pure and simple.

If looking for a nicely paid job and a not lasting developer challenging journey: Java
For corporate-level high scale, huge coding projects: Java
For programming beginners, looking for weekend freelance, just warm-up hobby programming, for personal Web sites: PHP

I don't really buy the argument that Java is the only thing to be used for high-level corporate web design. PHP is one of the most popular scripting languages on the planet and it has also gained OOP capabilities recently. It is quite easy to pick up and is used by thousands of of companies.

I would only consider using Java for desktop apps - unless a job said otherwise. Having said that, Java would be first first choice for desktop usage either. Even though the JVM enables portability across platforms such as Linux, Windows and Solaris, it makes any apps created in the language slower as the JVM takes up vital memory.

Other multi-platform languages such as C++ are faster because they have no virtual machine. My preferred desktop app language is C# although I will use the most suitable thing for the job.

As for web dev, I would always choose PHP.