But PHP blows. Or so I hear.

I remember when I learned Pascal back in the day. I should teach myself C++.
Php is easily the greatest Server Side programming language to grace the web. Its extremley easy, and extremly stable. I know JSP, ASP.net, and PHP - the three major backends, and I prefer PHP's power and usablilty over the other two any day of the week. On top of all that, it is a ton easier to use. Open source, tons of packages, and its.. just sexy as hell. Pluz with the Zend engine - you can make it do soooooo much. And did i say it is sexy? Also since it has such a large population of developers promoting its use, when you need some help, or a library for a certain task, or even when choosing a database you can find a nearly unlimited score of resources on the net. For free!

visit bloodshed.net for a free windows gui for compiling c\C++ programs - on top of it all they also chave a pascal compiler

perl is good for text manipulation but yeah i can't see playing a platformer made in perl eve
Anything you can do wilth pearl you can do with most modern backends, without the limitations.

If you like C++, and have an extra HDD or computer; I would suggest getting to know the GNU compilers. They are even sexyier than PHP.

bipper