php is best server side scripting language to create dynamic websites.

For sure, if your going to do the coding yourself, have an understanding of OO programming Magento under Zend is the way to go for E-Commerce.

PHP and Joomla both are the best free open source language for web development. I use both for that. Joomla in PHP is better option.

THANK YOU!

I was just amazed at most of the ridiculous answers in here... At least there's someone with a little common sense.

as opposed to what?

Joomla is not a language.

opinion not fact

php is language not a platform

oh shut up, please. All you Indians, Mexicans, spam bots, etc need to slow down, create/use your own Indian forum if you don't grasp the English language exactly.
Because trying to "help people" by posting useless comments that don't make sense does more harm than good.

Funny, I have clients who are clueless about anything web-related other than a basic understanding of their browser and still they are capable of managing the websites I've made for them...

Any CMS has security issues if you just install it and do nothing more. There are several measures you can take to protect your site and none of the websites I've made so far have been hacked. Not mentioning the huge spam attack I've had yesterday on one of my websites... None of the messages went through. I've had to delete a few by hand - that had not been published - and thousands more went straight to the trash and the IPs got banned in a couple of clicks.

Besides... 1.6???? That version was published... In January 2011 if memory serves me right. You seem to be a little late... Not mentioning that both 1.6 and 1.7 were STS (Short Term Service) versions and have mainly been used as test benches for the current LTS (2.5).

I guess that's a matter of opinion, uh? I say once you get used to it, it's great.

That's simply, plainly false. Home - Joomla! Extensions Directory
I make 99.9% of my work with free extensions. It's actually quite rare that I'd need a commercial one. As a matter of fact, in my latest e-book I show how to build a Joomla website with a ton of options like security, forum, community, PMs, contact form, etc, all with free extensions. But of course, I've taken the time to research, study and test them...

Seb.

Everyone in this thread is clueless, it is like 10 year olds arguing about sex.

Joomla is a cms, and has several shopping cart extensions available, the most popular of which is probably virtuemart. However, I would steer clear of Joomla for shopping carts unless you have only a few products or you are a Joomla fanboy, there are simply better tools for the job.

Magento is complete overkill in the vast majority of cases. It uses huge amounts of resources and has quite a learning curve, I would only recommend this for large stores and experienced developers.

Opencart is a good option if you are a relative novice at this, it is a nice, clean extensible script that has all the features you are likely to need. The templating system is great, you can get a really nice looking template from themeforest for about 50 bucks.