My problem is I want data. Not *pretty web pages*. Raw data in feed format that I can process. I'm pretty much getting the results you are looking for now but not beating my head around having to parse html with all it's problems: namely you open to the mercy of web designers whim to change the layout.

So I avoid HTML. I'm lazy. I look for the rss, rdf, pda html pages. Point my spider and dump them in a directory for later parsing. Most news sites have rss feeds (though my local newspaper, The Age supplies rss feeds for a fee. but produces a lite page for pda's.) so some parsing is necessary.

Now suppose I want to parse a page (in Perl) why wouldn't I use Andy Lesters fine WWW::Mechanise? (WWW::Mechanise article).

questions, questions, devils advocate

I'm not actually knocking the idea.

• does an existing CPAN module exist that does a subset already?
  
• could you build apon such a module?
  
  I ask this for 2 reasons. The first is the idea of rss feeds and web api's are gaining traction. The second is for quick hacks tools already exist. Take this example of Andys hack to get and sort the Perl Haiku results.
• is the intention to build it to scratch your itch or solve a generic problem?
  
• if you are using data structures to store the data could you investigate using/supporting YAML. (for multi-language support)?

now you may say, goon your an idiot, be quiet. but ...

"... Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse) ..."
esr ~ <a href="http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s02.html"> The Cathedral and the Bazaar v3.0</a>.