I am working on a project and was wondering what language is best for large scale websites. The website will start out small but it is important that the site is easily scalable. I have built the old static sites using just (HTML,CSS & javascript) but that is no good for a large site. I have built sites using .NET(vb) and PHP and I am learning Python (django) and Ruby (ruby on rails). So what language and possibly framework would be best suited to a website that could scale.

I know large scale sites use different languages Google uses python, facebook uses PHP with C++ and Erlang in the backend while twitter uses ruby on rails and I have seen quite a few use asp and jps (can't remember which sites).

So what would be the best option to build a large fast highly scalable secure website?

(ASP) .Net using C# or VB

(JSP) Java

PHP

Ruby on rails

Python

Perl

or some other

Truth is, with proper technique, any of these will work well.

I voted for Java only because, the standard conventions promote better techniques.

Regardless of your language choice, make sure you use connection pooling and caching for your database. Make sure you have a way to share session information among your servers (this keeps you from logging users out when performing deployments). I highly recommend using MVC in your design.
Do not make SQL calls from page code (PHP, ASP, JSP, etc...)

OTOH, I highly recommend using a server that can run on *nix. Simply because stability is better and remote administration is easier; especially when you need to manage a large number of servers.

I don't see ColdFusion in your list

does anyone use coldfusion?

It's not the language, it's how you use it

And I think all of those (including "other") are more popular choices than ColdFusion