As a developer going through web development I would like to know if J2EE
or PHP
is better for building web sites.
My initial thoughts were that J2EE was better because it is Java
based but upon reading several articles I read that PHP might be easier and more focused with regard to web development.
On this topic I have another query, whilst looking at different articles on web design and construction I came across websites that claimed to be built in J2EE, Java and Ruby. Is J2EE the same as Java? Or is it something completely different.
First of all, there is no J2EE anymore. There is Java EE. One profile in Java EE is the web profile. So while Java EE has a bunch of complex, enterprise-level stuff in it, you just use the piece you need.
However, it isn't even like Java EE is the choice for developing web applications in Java. It is the standard, but people have enjoyed great success with open-source frameworks like Spring MVC. If you expand your scope beyond Java to all JVM languages, you have Grails (in Groovy) and Play (in Java but also in Scala) at your disposal as well. Both are extremely good.
And then there are so many other non-JVM options like Zend (PHP) as you say but also Rails, Django (Python), etc.
So to truly appreciate what's "better," you need to consider a lot of things:
There is no "right" answer to this question. I would suggest the options approach described in Lean Software Development. Do some research to narrow your choices to three. Then get a site up and implement a representative feature with all three choices. The less appropriate choices for you will eliminate themselves and leave the best choice for you.
As for your last question, Java is a programming language; Java EE is an enterprise software platform utilizing the Java language and the JVM (with multiple profiles as mentioned). The Ruby part of the application you mentioned was probably utilized with JRuby, which enables you to run Ruby on the JVM via JSR 223.
this is depend on you skill or understability if you have good configuration knowledge then i suggest to you got through java j2ee. php is more easy to java
To be short and concise, If we're talking about professional development, then Java is the way to go.
If you're a hobbyist, then PHP would most probably be the right choice of yours.