[ILUG] [OT] Perl v.s PHP?

[Cormac McClean]

Hi,

What do you feel are the relative merits of Perl v.s PHP
for inclusion in a course in Web application development
(including database connectivity)?
Which is more widely used currently, and is this likely
to change in the future?

I know this is something of a mini-survey, but there is
a discussion about this here at the moment. I'm pushing
Perl, mostly because the students will have already
done an introduction to Perl as part of a course in
Linux System Administration, but also because I believe
it is very powerful for CGI programming.  PHP is being
proposed because "it's big".  It has the advantage that
PHP is embedded in HTML, but otherwise I can't see any
reason to select it over Perl.

Any comments?

Apologies for the OT-nature of this post, and here's hoping
it's not starting a Holy War (along the lines of Star Wars 
v.s Star Trek).

Thanks in advance,
Cormac.

P.S. Other "mainstream" Web development solutions are to
be included, such as Java and family, VBScript, ASP (erk).