Perl & Python vs. PHP & ASP

perl and python don't have to be used for web applications (i know the same applies for php/asp but not as much)

it doesn't apply to php just as much though

php can do it but thats not its main purpose

php = Personal Home Page
perl = Practical Extraction and Reporting Language

I played with perl before messing with, and loving php, and found it to be a little strict for me. Not as forgiving perhaps, but that was a few years ago. On the other hand, if I remember correctly, one can do a ton of stuff in a few lines of perl that would take several in php.

Maybe unrelated (and completely without backing), but I know a lot of hosts are frowning upon Perl due to resource usage, preferring client use php instead...

Speaking of PHP, what's the difference between PHP 4 and PHP 5?

if your just starting to code though its not really much different, except 5 has a few extras

Hrm, as for me, I use Python whenever I can. I've been using it more and more for websites, because CherryPy makes it less painful than it used to be (CGI and mod_python are painful.) Besides the fact that I consider Python to be "more fun," it's usually easier to read other people's source code (or even my own!) because the language by nature enforces clean code. Even the best php apps are not very easy to read and figure out right away.

As a side note, the question probably should have been "why would someone use python vs. php & asp" or "perl vs. php & asp" because other than being interpreted languages, Python and Perl are quite different philosophically.