My personal opinion on why it is hard to find a newbie guide on this subject is because it is not a newbie subject. Ok, a mailform is fairly trivial but a guestbook involves access to some data file which involves file permissions, file locking, security, etc. I recommend you work you way up instead of jumping right into a writing a guestbook. Why not head on over to Ovid's online Web Programming with Perl course?

Also, i learned a great deal about CGI from CGI Programming with Perl. It's a bit outdated, but it is still good.

Finally, check out the repository of NMS scripts. They have a complete and secure Webform and Guestbook, among other common CGI wishlist items. Study the code and learn a lot of good programming habits.

Best of luck to you, and feel free to post your questions at this site when they arise.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)