If you work in the Internet biz, read George’s post Why PHP Scales – A Cranky, Snarky Answer. It’s worth 10 minutes, and the crankiness level is a lot lower than the title would lead you to expect.
He’s right that Java is actually faster than PHP because Java is a compiled language and PHP is not. And he’s right that it really doesn’t matter 99.9% of the time.
Dude has a point. No language is going to give you magic results, people can do stupid things in Java or in C++ or in PHP. For me it comes down to what language is easier and faster to develop in and which design allows for changes in requirements and such.