I'm going to join the chorus of "good luck" and also "the consultant should be shot".

I'm also going to say you're in a very sticky situation.

How's this for a question -- why are you attacking this problem from behind?

You've got 8,000 lines of bad code -- forget that for a second, what is it that you want to achieve?

If you've got a database and you've got some expected output, we might well be able to bridge that gap with a new script. Is the JavaScript necessary, or does your boss just need to see reports on x number of widgets sold on the east coast versus x number of widgets sold on the west coast?

Considering what we know about your consultant, they might very well not be very good reports in the first place.

So I'm saying, what if you go back to your boss and say "forget the exact details, layout etc of the reports you have now, reproducing them is a very complex job -- what do you really need to know? I'll start on that." and take it from there.

Getting data out of a database into a web page is not the hardest task you will ever face in Perl. 


($_='kkvvttuubbooppuuiiffssqqffssmmiibbddllffss')
 =~y~b-v~a-z~s;                             print

[download]

In reply to Re: Sub-initiate needs help getting started by Cody Pendant
in thread Sub-initiate needs help getting started by Lori713

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.