While not sexy and hip, remember 35 percent of web traffic is handled by PHP... PHP is still a player. I'm not a huge fan of either PHP or Ruby, but with HipHop

While not sexy and hip, remember 35 percent of web traffic is handled by PHP... PHP is still a player. I'm not a huge fan of either PHP or Ruby, but with HipHop PHP apps seems to have a path to higher scalability. All languages eventually decline and die, and while PHP might be declining (and as of this year maybe Ruby too) PHP's death is going to be extremely slow, probably decades. In 30 years I would not be surprised if PHP is the COBOL of web development.