thanks!

I am absolutely not trying to dissuade you from learning and experimenting.

I appreciate that sentiment - I have a wee project that has gone from cgi to fcgi and now plack. It's just a hobbie project for me to learn Perl, nothing to be released in wild. I realise there are faster implementations to get through the gate, but each step has had certain and 'ah-ha!' moments for me, which adds to the richness of the language and also how the web protocols work. I've already had a look at some the Mojolicious documentation, so that is on the horizon soon.

Also thanks for the other suggestions (eg strict and keys).