A) Perl is spelt perl or Perl, never PERL. PERL is just plain wrong.

B) PHP is never the right way.

C) Embedding code in html pages is generally considered bad form, depending on what the code does. The reasons behind this is because people generally prefer to seperate content and application logic from design elements.

Your first example of php code is a bad example of embedding logic in to your html page, you would be better served by having one central script that can check for an appropiate log in and take appropiate action.

Your second example is probably a good example of embedding logic in your your html, in this case your logic is only controlling the presentation of the page.