Java Enterprise?
Ruby on Rails?
php?
asp?

what are the pros and cons?

thank you!!

That question is a little open-ended. It's doubtful you're going to get all the facts you're looking for, as very few folks that visit the "Newbie" forum will have the answers on the examples you cited.

ASP (note that there's original ASP and ASP.NET) is typically ran on Windows, but can work under Linux with Mono. I sometimes use this, depending on what kind of mood I'm in.

If I have a first choice, it's PHP. It just "feels" robust to me. I don't have any kind of parameters to back that up, it's just my opinion.

I'm not familiar with RoR or Java EE.

All will have various security concerns.

Perhaps if you provide some more background on your reasons for asking, you'll get a much more meaningful answer.

Is there any specific task you are looking to accomplish?

PHP is good, and Java is good, but for either of those, I would highly recommend you define a style guide - something that dictates how the code should be formatted - and stick to it, religiously. This is from experience; where I work, I set myself a style guide so that when I have to wade through my own, personal PHP code that I hoped to never have to look at again, I am not scratching my head going "WTF?".

I have never done anything in Ruby, but I have seen the syntax, and I highly suggest a style guide for that, too.

Alternately, there's Python, which would require a much less-strict style guide as it's syntax is extremely readable.

My own, personal choice though, is Common Lisp - but I'm a weirdo.

EDIT: What I'm trying to get at is that it really doesn't matter what you decide on to accomplish your task, as any language will do, you just need to make sure the mere thought of having too look at any code after it has been written won't send you into a confused state.

I want to build a media search engine that will let the user search for pictures, music files and short movie clips. What language/technology would you recommend? I want to build a search engine that searches through all those "index of...." pages and message boards around the internet.

and when I build one, I will be one of the biggest customers of my own search engine. I also am a big fan of newest German cars.

I would of course prefer an easier language....

I once read php is easier to learn, but Java Enterprise is easier to use once you learn Java Enterprise, because Java Enterprise can take advantage of Java API.

ehm, nice plan but for an amature a bit too high reached.
Not only do you need a complex code setup, but also MASS BANDWIDTH (as in speed AND traffic) if you want to pull it off.
(a colocation setup might be suitable, with additional traffic brought)
And there is the security..

anyway..
either language can pull it off.

Python (used by google)
Ruby on Rails (used by twitter)
ASP.NET (used by BING)
CGI (was/is used by Yahoo)
PHP (many other corporate sites)
Java (used by.... SUN, lol)

thanks a lot for your input teebones

yeah I will probably pay for some space in other servers... yeah the bandwidth will be disgustingly expensive... I read it costs Google 1 million dollars per day to operate u tube (bandwidth only)

I can never get enough of youtube hd....

Perl is a very good lang; compiled on the fly, so pretty quick runtime, but easier to program than C.
I've done both extensively.
Perl has a vast library (search.cpan.org) of pre-written modules you can use.
See also http://perldoc.perl.org/ & http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=Tutorials

In the end, as above, you need to be strict with your coding style whichever lang you go with.

@teebones: "The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol" not a lang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface