It depends on the environment really.

I develop mostly in PHP, but I also mostly work with in the LAMP stack which is where PHP is most commonly used.

ASP is most common on Windows servers.

CGI, is not a language, its a common gateway interface, for containing languages like Perl, Python, sometimes PHP, etc.... Scripted forms, counters, calculations are usually run from CGI in one of the scripting languages.

I personally prefer PHP, it's powerful, lightweight, and fast.

PHP is most popular and most common open source programming language of the modern internet. Due to easy syntax and abilities of code it's makes this language very powerful.

If you are just starting out and want to learn some programming language you should go for php.

However, you should think about universal programming language - python. Python is way easier than PHP, and it is as powerful as PHP. And not to mention that if you know python you will be able to make web and executable application (you can make websites and windows or any other operating system applications).

Python is very newbie friendly too. Highly recommended.

I would vote for PHP too. Its FREE and easy to learn. I recommend PHP to the newbie after HTML. It has a great scope of learning and you can learn alot in it and from it.

I am also going to vote for PHP. I work with PHP so, personally, i believe it's the best for the moment

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