This idea has generated a fantastic amount of interest and it looks as though the design stage has already started...

Perhaps it would be an idea to sit back a bit and think about what the project is going to demonstrate. Hopefully from this the user requirements may become a bit clearer. I take it as read that it will demonstrate co-operative working in a project so I won't go into that any deeper but instead try to think about the lower level stuff.

I'm assuming that we want it to be a showcase for Perl and so it may be an idea to pull a list of features that we want to demonstrate. This is just off the top of my head, hopefully others will add and refine:

1) Using regexes to extract fields from complex data
2) Command line arguments and validation - config files etc.
3) Good error handling throughout
4) Choice of storage i.e. DB File, Oracle, My SQL - depending on what the user has available
5) Use of modules, both core and specially written
6) Some sort of GUI or HTML based(Odud pauses to open a fresh can of worms)
7) Works on as many platforms as possible
8) High quality embedded documentation 9) OO or not?
10) Easy, automatic installation and configuration

Oh, I could go on forever - hopefully better folk than I will be able to enhance this list, if it is seen to have any merit.