I have had my material on the web since around 1998 and I have a long interest in education and distance education in particular. I did a post graduate IT qualification through distance education around 1995 when the software was very crude, I trained as a teacher for three years starting 2003 gaining a post graduate qualification and I have been following devlopments in web based learning systems very closely.
There are several reasons why I use PHP applications. I spent about 2 years developing an exam engine in JSP/Servlets and found I could not find any reliable affordable web hosting at the time. I tried several different services and found that the service was unpredictable and resulted in an unnacceptable number of time outs. This was a few years ago and hosting services may have improved since.
So I converted the exam engine over to PHP and because it is a lighter weight system I found it easy to find low cost reliable hosting. Also I really liked the ease of use of the language. One of the main things I don't like about PHP is that PHP programming jobs tend to pay less than
Java programming jobs which is a big strike against the technology (grins). I work as a Java/Oracle programmer at the moment.
The reason I use the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) see
http://www.moodle.org which is written in PHP is because it is a truly awesome system. It is so good I went to Perth in Western Australia in the Spring of last year and met with the project head and lead programmer, and I have been to a couple of the user conferences here in the UK. In fact I am about to install the latest beta version and see if I can help with the
test process, as soon as I have completed this post.
There is a Java based VLE system but I didn't know about that untill I had become significantly committed to Moodle, and I have had no reason to re-consider my choice.
Good question by the way.
Marcus