is there actually any advantage to writing code like this?

The "advantage" was probably one of not exceeding the original author's capabilities. It might have been a case of "you do what you can with what you have". Getting a simple page working, and then copy the HTML into a CGI is a pretty simple way to get started, though longer term maintenance is a hassle.

Time passes. The original author gets more competent, or a new, more competent developer (you) comes along.

It's now a business decision as to whether investing time to clean this code up, say, by separating the HTML out into templates, makes sense. Your task is to provide management with information about the cost of the status quo (high on-going maintenance) versus the cost of a rewrite (some cost now, lower ongoing maintenance).

They may weigh the risks and decide on status quo.

In reply to (dws)Re: Why use HTML instead of CGI? (codediscussion) by dws
in thread Why use HTML instead of CGI? (code, discussion) by deprecated

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.