Nice topic.
I fell into perl when my company didn't really have any programmers, and an old perl script needed fixin'. Turned out I was able to troubleshoot it. Then I started learning perl by hacking through that script and eventually getting the right books and finding this website. I've been playing with it for about 3-4 years now, and I've never written (well, completed) a CGI or web app. Most of my work involves taking nasty-looking customer data and quickly turning it into something that our databases or order entry systems find pretty. As I learn more, my scripts extend their capabilities - grabbing files via ftp, parsing data and throwing it into databases, creating reports in excel, emailing them to People Who Care, logging all script activities into a single log file, etc. The more I learn (when I get the chance to) the more I love throwing simple bells and whistles into my scripts. I've recently built an app w/ a GUI, which was (mostly) fun, but still no CGI.

I've finally gotten the gumption to put together a couple of websites that will need perl functionality, and I discovered the Template Toolkit, which should be fun to play with. I'm looking forward to finally (after 3-4 years) getting into web development and CGI with perl, and I'm thrilled to find out that somewhere between 10 and 30% of the questions that make their way through these gates are going to help me in that journey =)

-=rev=-