Hi, I'm working on converting my very old, HTML-only, web page to a dynamic page using server-side code. I've never programmed in perl, python, ruby, or php (much) before, so I'm not quite sure which language to use (or if there are other good languages). I'm looking for something that will integrate well with apache2 on Linux and have good database functionality (specifically with MySQL). I've done most of my "programming" in bash scripts and some C++, but am willing to spend some time learning whichever language works well. If you have any recommendations on which language might be best for me, I would appreciate your input!

Any of the above would be a good choice. If I had to pick one, I'd probably say PHP, because it has a relatively short learning curve and is very widely used, meaning that there are lots resources (books, tutorials, libraries, etc.) available. It also has built in support for MySQL and is supported by pretty much every web host around, if that's an issue.

PHP works very well as an apache module and has great support for mysql. It also has a very C/C++-like syntax, so your transition should be easy. I've developed a number of sites in PHP and have found it to work well in all cases.

If your programming will be limited to strictly web applications, then PHP is a good choice. Learning any of the others will be more useful for other general-purpose tasks. I can't speak about ruby or python, with respect to suitability for web programming, but perl certainly has the capability to serve all of your listed requirements.

--- rod.