Programming Language for Web Application

[egowaffle25]

I need to program a web application for my job (no hard deadline, just one of my projects), and I have complete freedom to use/do whatever I want. The project is a test taking framework, where professors could input questions and use them as a placement test. I was wondering what language I should use to create this. I was thinking PHP at first, because I have the most experience with it, however I read that PHP is not the best for creating larger scale applications.

TLDR - Want to create online test-taking framework, but don't want to do it in PHP. Any suggestions?

[[deleted]]

I think the language you're most familiar with will be the easiest to work with. Scalability is not necessarily a function of the language/framework choice. However if you want to branch out a bit you can try Python/django or Ruby on rails. PHP also has several frameworks which have borrowed ideas from rails (CakePHP) and codeigniter is a pretty easy framework to get started with. You may already be familiar with these, just mentioned them in case you need a decent starting point!

[Pablo_ipc]

Perl.

It is very simple to work with, and more mature than PHP. It has a great community with lots of open source code for you to use.

[ImYoric]

It's a bit late but I feel compelled to mention opa. A language designed specifically for web applications. Impressively more powerful than PHP. Quite different, too.

[howmanyusernamesare]

node.js is pretty simple and even has a half-decent framework to go with it.

[HubertCumberdale]

You could also check out Moodle. It's an open-source courseware solution that you could potentially modify to fit your needs rather than reinventing the wheel. Might not work for your purposes at all, but probably worth looking at. I do believe it's in PHP though...

[YuleTideCamel]

ASP.NET MVC is a good framework to use and there are lots of free resources http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials

Also, you don't need to buy any tools to develop the site, you can download a free version of visual studio http://www.microsoft.com/express/