Re: The REAL reason for why they choose PHP over Perl.

[ww]

Ignoring the inaccuracy (I think) of the instructor's answer and of your supposition (embedded in your question "why does everyone seem to prefer PHP nowadays") that that answer is factually correct, one might focus on your identification of what you call "not important" topics... "(x)HTML, JavaScript, Coldfusion...."

That sounds to me (my own possible snobbery acknowledged) like a survey course, or a course appropriate to a vocational school. If that's the charter for the institution you visited, all well and good.

Clearly, there's a market for web workers who can fit into a production line operation and a little JavaScript is a great adjunct.

and then we come to ColdFusion, Dreamweaver and the other aps that let those with little knowledge of html turn out workaday pages -- the headline page of your local newspaper that's updated manually several times an hour; the auto dealer who has one of the salesmen or mechanics periodicly update the stock list and so on. There's a demand out there for folk who know just enough to do those jobs with aps like CF or DW. And that means, there's a demand for schools that teach them.

On the other hand, teaching folks how to program -- whether in ASM, C#, perl or Ada (God forbid!) -- doesn't lend itself to a survey course, nor is it likely to be accomplished in a semester or two, unless the student is already proficient in something... and it requires more preptime and expertise from the teacher, than does a survey course.

And, IMO, even training the average college student as an html coder (no snobbery here: I can proudly say, 'I am one"), is going to take more than a mere survey course, unless the student is exceptionally diligent and motivated to learn more than mere basics.