Be careful with handing out advice that you aren't damned sure of.

For instance telling him to use CGI.pm's html generating methods is crap. Search for "separation of content and presentation" some time. (Templating as well.) While handrolled HTML is bad, at least it is easier to move between that and editing complex HTML using standard web design tools than it is to have to mentally translate everything to and from Perl calls just to see what changed.

Just because CGI is supposed to be a good module, and it offers those functions, doesn't mean that it is a good idea to use those functions for anything other than toy examples!