Let me run slightly counter to the advice that you got from everyone else.

Yes, use the param() method of CGI to parse form data.

Do not use it as a method of producing HTML for anything but the simplest of scripts. When you use it, you guarantee that all HTML coding has to be done by a programmer, and translation to and from any external layout tools will be a real PITA. Unless you want to find people who are both decent programmers and decent HTML designers, that is a poor way to factor work.

See Re (tilly) 6: Code Critique for a somewhat theoretical explanation of the real tradeoffs between different approaches to generating HTML in code.