...Perl kicks PHP's scrawny unmanageable a$$... But both are inperfect for different reasons.

C++ is rule for web applications; not easy to use admitadly, it doesn't natively have the text manipulation features of Perl, nor the huge library of builtin nonsensically named functions as PHP, but if you're gonna write in a language that gets more and more C++-like with every release ( i.e. PHP ), you may aswell write in a language that can be compiled.. Zend is written in C++, and adds effecively nothing to the language apart from an additional layer of interpretation, and the aforementioned set of builtin functions; which are afforded ( better ! ) by third-party C++ libraries. At least Perl doesn't look like, or try to emulate weakly typed C++.

If you have a choice, write in C++ with XML libraries and a database library; or Java, which has both in the standard library. All the 'mixing HTML with server app code' functionality as afforded by PHP, ASP, and also Perl and others, is overated at best, and a manageability nightmare at worst.

Just my opinion, of course..