I don't know why people keep comparing languages asking which is better. All languages can do the job, it's just a matter of how easy it is to do said job.

I'm not sure how PHP isn't reliable with larger databases..could you expand on that thought?

Well even though this thread is old, I still gotta contribute I notice with PHP you can learn a lot of what you need in a weekend. But with JSP, it takes a long time because Java is a full fledged programming language.

Cheers

Writing Java inside a JSP is generally considered an anti-pattern. One of the worst practices.

Logic should almost always be performed in a servlet or a controller class. The JSP should really only function to render data.

I am a software engineer currently looking for work, and I've noticed that the two most popular web development languages being used right now seem to be ASP.NET and PHP. I've also been seeing some postings for web jobs using Ruby on Rails and some for Django (a web framework that uses Python). As for JSP, I don't remember the last time I saw a job posting for JSP.

I haven't used Django, but I've heard that it's designed for rapid, well-designed web development with clear, understandable code. I've used Python before, and Python itself has a fairly large standard library, which I thought was nice. I've heard that Ruby on Rails is also a good web framework.

I've used PHP, and I think it works well as a web development language. Much of my PHP experience has been with version 4, and one of the things I didn't like so much about PHP is that it didn't have good support for object-oriented programming. Thus, much of PHP's functionality is provided simply by a set of functions that you can call, passing a bunch of parameters. And it feels like the design of PHP was a bit disorganized, with multiple functions performing similar tasks (i.e., explode() vs. split(), and ereg_replace() vs. str_replace()).

PHP is a scripting langaguge. PHP is used to create website fast and easy, It is easy to cheap to find hosting for it. But it is not build to develop stable system like JSP JAVA and beans.

That's because nobody does just JSP. In a professional shop, JSP's are just used for rendering. Try searching J2EE or Java EE.

dice.com 3500+(J2EE) 1400+(PHP) 2300+(ASP.net)
computerjobs.com 700+(J2EE) 300+(PHP) ~=500(ASP.net)
theladders ~=700(J2EE) 200+(PHP) 200+(ASP.net)

As a Software Engineer, also my title, you'll find most jobs want C/C++, Java, and/or C# with a random collection of other things. PHP and ASP.net tend to be m ore in the realm of web development and less in the realm of engineering (of course, there is overlap).

To decide what you want to do, first decide which direction you want to take your career.