In answer to an enquiry as to the optimum language to use on a shared server (such as at an ISP) for customer facing applications for small to medium size businesses:

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The languages that I recommend for such server side applications for smaller web sites are Perl and PHP.  Languages such as Java and C# are designed for use on much larger sites where there's a large amount of code involved, and if you use a language like C you'll have a much longer development cycle to generate a slightly more efficient piece of code - hardly necessary unless you're expecting thousands of hits every hour. The sort of customers you're planning on providing for will want to share space on a web server at an ISP's facility; both Perl and PHP are commonly available on such shared space at a sensible price.   The big difference between the two languages is that in Perl your write a PROGRAM that generates as web page, but in PHP you write a WEB PAGE that includes programatic elements.   Both languages easily interface to Relational Databases such as MySQL, which you'll also find available on the typical ISP server.

Just a quick follow up - I would suggest that Java is typically suited for much larger applications or suites of code where you're talking complete systems rather than just a web site, and that C has become much more a specialist language than it used to be - ideal for low level code such as device drivers, mathematical work such as image handling (but even here there are standard image handling libraries built into the likes of PHP), and applications where you still need to get every ounce of performance out of your harware and you're prepared to pay the cost of a lot of development effort for the privelige.

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