Java or PHP?
 

I plan on learning one of those 2 languages and plan on buying some books on them, but I dont know which is more useful and beneficial. Also, is flash a type of coding as well?

Anyways, Does anyone have reccommendations on books for coding? I would really like to start learning!

I know PHP from before, no expert though. I'm going to learn Java, in fact I have a course in school that starts tomorrow! I ordered the book "Aboslute Java (International Edition)", I haven't received it yet but I was told it's a very good book. :)

PHP is the most popular language for web development nowadays. Java... slow platform for windows development. Depends on your purposes, really.

Well, I was planning on making a site in the future much like Gaiaonline.com... but I dont know what they use.

Java is much more strict than PHP - if you wish to learn critical aspects of modern OOP programming than I would suggest learning that first.

If you wish to build a dynamic website, then PHP is a good solution.

@Psionic - Java is platform independent...

In nearly every single respect, Java is a far superior language to PHP. Learn Java. PHP teaches you to write code, but Java teaches how to write code that doesn't suck.

Learn from viewing good source, books only go so far.

Is it possible to make a site like Gaia out of Java? Java is like flash right?

Not really... For the Web, I would definitely use Flash since it's much faster and can do most of what Java can do...

I agree completely with what Filburt said. :)