Introduction

I use perl a lot in my professional life. Over the past years, it has been my primary web automation development language. These pages cover the language, my thoughts, and more.

I need to point out that I am not a perl biggot. I support and use other languages as appropriate and I am always ready to be moved to a new, better development language.

I try to use perl to solve real world problems. I find that for web publishing, it's ability to handle text is a natural fit.

Updated: 25-Jun-2004

Web Site Automation

Perl is a natural fit for web site automation. I find that it's ability to easily and flexibly handle text makes most jobs very easy. I have also settled on a set of modules which help (see the modules discussion).

I should tell you that a great deal of my work is done in the background and that many of the pages produced for web sites end up being static web pages when published. I find that this improves web site performance since changes are only necessary when someone changes content.

I generally work to the objective of minimizing the amount of resources expended by creating new content only when something changes. Generally, my dynamic web pages are actually static pages generated when the content changes. This minimizes the amount of resources required to display the page--an activity that takes place much more often than modifying content.

Updated: 19-Aug-2004

Dynamic JavaScript

One powerful combination is the use of a perl script to generate JavaScript statements. This produces "dynamic" JavaScript. This technique is especially powerful when database retrieval needs to be combined with client side manipulation of the results.

This technique is used on the SHPS site to generate boxes which "maintain themselves". The script uses perl to read a text file with the HTML surrounded by comments which form blocks. The block of code has a start and end date time stamp which allows it to appear and disappear without webmaster intervention at the appropriate time. These dynamic blocks can be set up in advance and are displayed as appropriate by the perl script through the use of JavaScript "document.write()" statements.

Updated: 20-Aug-2004

Web Services

You don't often think of perl when you think of web services. Web services seem to be the pervue, primarily of the Java Community.

But perl can be used to integrate into a web services framework. I have worked with the SOAP::Lite set of perl modules to experiments with web services.

Like a lot of web services developers, I haven't actually done anything real but I have created modules which can access web services as clients.

Updated: 2-Oct-2007

Examples

I thought you might want to see some of the things I have done on the web with perl. Unfortunately, a large number of these are hidden behind the corporate firewall, and are therefore, not visible. Here are some that are.

School Event Calendar

This calendar has recurring events, allows the user to select dates through a graphical interface. I have written several versions of this calendar script to handle unique situations.

Simple Calendar Interface

This script answers a business problem of displaying files which are produced periodically. It is configured to automatically display files from a directory based on a name which contains a date.

Publishing System

I have created a complete publishing system in perl. This shows one of the features, the ability to display documents published within the last 14 days. The system produces static web pages which are published to the web site.

Dynamic JavaScript

I find the combination of perl and JavaScript to be especially potent. The calendar display on this page is generated dynamically by a perl script.

Mailer

Everyone does one of these. This simple script allows for templates for the web pages and the e-mail response.

Shopping

I have implemented several online shopping scripts. I don't write my own, but use other peoples. This one is the excellent script from Extropia which I have modified.

Updated: 19-Aug-2004

Modules

The excellent work of other perl hackers makes my life much easier. Here are some of the modules which I have settled on to help with my day-to-day work. These are all available on CPAN.

CGI

Don't do web work without it. Excellent for formatting pages, retrieving information from forms, etc.

Date::Manip

An excellent date manipulation module.

DBI:DBD

I am a fan of postgres and I use a lot of CSV so the related database modules are essential to my work.

DBD::CSV

I use this a lot for database type applications where the amount of data isn't all that great. Calendars are a good example of this type of application.

Text::Template

I could have chosen an HTML specific template package, but I find that this more general package meets my needs.

Updated: 2-Aug-2004

HTML::Mason

I'm doing some extensive work with this module to provide a dynamic aspect to my work website. This site is primarily a static site, but, with a new look-and-feel, we are moving to a complex navigation system. I want to keep the static nature of the site while easing the maintenance of this navigation menu system. You can follow my thoughts in a Wiki.