XML does not replace HTML. HTML is mark up language for presenting data and XML is for describing data. Combining the two is what XSL is all about. Confused yet?

Don't worry about learning all these different languages. Just learn OOP, and when\if you want to switch, it will be easy.

JAVA looks like a nice language, but its not a data-centric language so IMO it doesn't make a lot of sense for database work.

Charlie