Yes, file management is boring. Sometimes data manipulation can be boring, too. Maybe I am a fan of the wrong language? But there's more to Perl than those 2 things.

There are, and I wouldn't call myself a representative of People Who Use Perl. Clearly there's more to it than my (boring) job requires. But I suspect the core Perl users are people with, if not boring, at least un-sexy jobs; they use Perl because it gets those jobs done. An awful lot of programming is data and file management. Cool things can be done with Perl, but, alas, many people don't have cool jobs.

You are missing my point. Why just mention CGI? How about having a book that deals with Perl CGI scripts that are geared toward e-commerce situations? Think about it: the author can discuss security with Perl (e.g., taint mode and different modules, etc) and then move on to other issues in e-commerce. But if I had a choice, I wouldn't mention CGI at all. I would discuss mod_perl, Apache, and maybe something else.

Yes, the more descriptive a book's title is, the better; but on the other hand, if it's too long it just gets ridiculous. You also seem to want very specific books to exist, rather than more all-encompassing books that cover the fundamentals; I guess "Perl for e-Commerce" would be useful on some level, but then, a good basic book about CGI programming could teach you what you need to know to do e-commerce yourself, and you wouldn't have shelled out another thirty-five dollars on another book.

Reading my posts, I get the impression that I am coming across as somewhat of a troll. I don't want to give that impression. I started this thread because it just seems to me that the Perl books out there are so bland. I care about Perl's image.

With all due respect, you might be perceived as less trollish if you didn't post anonymously.

__________
"Abby-somebody. Abby-normal."
—Young Frankenstein