1. If you are looking to print in a web-based situation, it is best that you use print <<EOM; If you know this, then disregard the rest, but it allows you to print out until the intepreter finds that specific string. Very convenient, especially if you are printing at the end of your script. Passing variables is always preferable to using globals, just from the aspect of good programming practice.

2. I think that using built in reserved oeprators are faster than calling shift, but calling shift explicitly gives you the variable, where $_ may occasionally get you mixed up, and that's alot harder to find, especially when Apache is barking at you ;)

3. If you are concerned about speed, then you should consider compiling Apache with mod_perl, but CGI.pm is a great interface, and makes life alot easier. You don't need to concern yourself with the HTTP header information, but if you want to make the most of the module, you can consider using it to output your resulting HTML using that module. So you don't need to learn that terrible markup language ;)