Java vs Cakephp

I've done quite a bit of Java in my early days as a student.And I got involved with Freelance projects later on which were LAMP driven.PHP applications are easy-to-setup & the CakePHP MVC allows for more organized development.tho for my own personal projects I'm wondering which is more scalable & better suited for complex projects: Java or CakePHP?
one problem with PHP is that due to the lax data-typing & OOP : which make it painless to code.creates problem when designing the application early on.I'd like to use UML ,but it looks like UML is only valid for JAVA projects & not PHP.I hope someone would enlighten me on which is better.

Cake & the Mythical Man-Month

I've taken upon myself the task to put Mr Fred Brook's style of software development:

1. Planning
   
2. Coding
3. Module Testing
4. Systems Test

With the time allocated to each process being (1/3,1/6,1/4 & 1/4).
This would appear awkward to most web developers on today owning to the more organic build-test-build method so many of us practice on a daily basis.However , the allocation of more time to planning & only 1/6th of the time spent on Programming shows the importance we should give on getting the Model right at the very beginning.

I shall try this technique out on my latest project (a Cake + Wordpress MU blogging engine).The project will be a 1 month affair and will be based on techniques developed from the Pilot system.
I shall post my progress on thoughts on this technique on a stage-by-stage basis.

Lack of Web Engineering Tools

I'm a developer faced with a problem:

1. Web Applications which start simple grow into complex machines
2. Current UML & Software Engineering aren't that applicable to web apps
3. No community of developers appear to address these issues

I'm using the Cake framework for PHP , which is to a great extent:

1. Object Orientated
2. Scalable

However, when it comes the all critical planning stage , my team appears to have problems defining the problem area in sufficient detail to come up with an accurate solution.
Even worse , mis-communication of requirements can sometimes lead to applications which dont meet the clients requirements!
This maybe due to the fact that the team is still young and inexperienced with large-scale development .But the lack of proper Software Engineering techniques is a big factor in the current chaos when it comes to the Planning Stage.