Programming for the web

Hi,

I've been looking into learning programming, as I want to be able to write my 
own scripts rather than just modify other people's.  However, I cannot decide 
which language would be the most useful.  The ones I've been looking at are 
Java, Perl and Javascript.  Any suggestions which would be best?

Can anyone recommend some books?  Are there any good websites?

Also, can you write CGI scripts in Java, and if so do you need anything 
special on the server?  Are they faster than Perl scripts?

Thanks for any help,
Peter.

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