You're welcome to just use CGI (if your webserver supports it). It's deprecated because it's a poor foundation for a full application not because it's not useful and easy.

use strictures;
use CGI ":standard";
use HTML::Entities;

# Called https://mysite/cgi-bin/rpc.pl?args=to;the=call
my $explicitly_scalar_param = param("args");
my $the = param("the");

print header(),
    start_html("Title..."),
    h1("header"),
    div("Do something safely with",
        encode_entities($explicitly_scalar_param),
        "and",
        encode_entities($the)),
    end_html;

# Test on command line: ./rpc.pl 'args=to;the=call'
[download]

A *minimalist* modern take. If the thing is to grow, it should be in a framework like Mojolicious and friends. This uses PSGI via Plack::Request and the command line tool plackup. There are many deployment options for PSGI; from plackup through uWSGI.

use strictures;
use Plack::Request;
# Called https://mysite/not-the-cgi-bin/rpc.pl?args=to;the=call

sub {
    my $req = Plack::Request->new(+shift);
    my $args = $req->parameters->{args};
    my $the = $req->parameters->{the};
    [ 200,
      [ "Content-Type" => "text/html" ],
      [ "HTML tags + output. You HTML encode ALL unknown data." ]
    ];
};

# Command line: plackup rpc.pl
# HTTP::Server::PSGI: Accepting connections at http://0:5000/
#                           -> port 5000 on localhost ^^^
[download]

Update: the PSGI version would not go in the cgi-bin.

You might be interested in UP-TO-DATE Comparison of CGI Alternatives, and hippo has mentioned some alternatives to CGI.pm such as CGI::Lite or CGI::Simple.

I'd recommend Mojolicious::Lite .. as the name says, it's quite light-weight, and will do what you need.

So BernieC, do you want a CGI-based solution or prefer alternatives?

I have no problem with alternatives! My only problem was that all of the aternatives in the "old" ALTERNATIVES were all too ambitious. I'll look at mojolicious::Lite and the others mentioned.. It has been more than a decade since I messed with CGI.pm and so I'd have to learn anything that I decided to use.

I can't tell much about mojolicious::Lite because the docs seem to be focusing it on a subset of mojolicious, and I'm not really interested in learning a big "frameworkd" just so I can use a mini-package that only implements part of it.

CGI::LITE and CGI::SIMPLE both look like just what I was looking for! The main difference I can see {for my purposes} is that ::SIMPLE includes the calls to set up simple HTML responses. I vaguely remember that I could/did do "my own" HTML responses and it was pretty simple {and mostly I didn't bother with CGI's html-construction stuff}, but I don't remember how any more so I might swing towards ::SIMPLE and let it handle the headers and such.

Thanks!

I'm not really interested in learning a big "frameworkd" just so I can use a mini-package that only implements part of it

That's not really the case here... Mojolicious::Lite is part of the Mojolicious distribution, and instead of only implementing "parts" of the full framework, it just makes the full framework easier to use to write small applications. See Mojolicious::Guides::Tutorial.

I don't remember how any more so I might swing towards ::SIMPLE and let it handle the headers and such.

Note that the HTTP headers are quite different from HTML generation, and it's usually a good idea to use a module to handle the HTTP headers. As for HTML generation, you might be interested in HTML::Tiny, as mentioned in CGI::Alternatives, if you want to go that route instead of using a templating engine such as Template::Toolkit.

One more thing to consider here is whether your host will allow you to run your own web server. For my free-host there is no way I can run external commands. Not even use a compiler. Unless I run them via a CGI but then the webserver monitors it and eventually kills it. So, it would be useful, definetely, to hear which of the non-CGI-based alternatives can work in such environments or even if someone knows of a free-host who supports, say, Mojolicious::Lite. Personally, if I had a commercial project which paid well and had control over the host, I would surely try the alternatives (despite having invested effort on building a CGI-based backend with templates). The good news, CGI or alternatives, the main underlying engine is Perl:

bw, bliako