[neovive]

PHP might not be the most elegant in the world, but for a small- to mid-size web application, using a solid PHP5 framework (like KohanaPHP) along with a PHP accelerator and you have an easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy application.

[kaens]

I agree in general, it's just not for me.

For small to mid-size web apps, I far prefer python and cherrypy (http://www.cherrypy.org). Easier to use, and easier to deploy assuming you have hosting that gives you control over your hosted machine (here's looking at you, slicehost).