This morning I'd read an article with the title: “Why Do 'Cool Kids' Choose Ruby or PHP to Build Websites Instead of Java?”, and I think I may have some opinions on this kind of topic.
Please discuss the following questions with the website owner or business owner first
- What is your budget and dead line for this website project?
- How many developers/designers involved ?
If there's system architect, ask the following questions
- What is his/her preferred architect/framework/OS etc.
- What is the hosting environment?
- What is the scale and stability requirement?
- What is the last successful project used?
After you have those questions answered, you might find the programming language was already decided and there won't be much choices for you.
If you still have, here's some ideas I can provide:
- If the project is an important one, choose the language that you(or your team) are most familiar with and have successful experiences
- If the project is a bleeding edge, all brand new stuff to you, choose the same language that a competitor website used
- If the project is a small/tiny one with a strong focus on the design instead of back-end functionality, choose a programming language that support easy template engine so designer don't give you a hard time to convert it
- If you still can't decide, please write a comment here and I'll help you
