Even so, I'm in favor of keeping my data together, even across a network. A small optimization by hard-coding in data is hardly worth spreading it around to 30 different scripts that will need it. Also, keeping data centralized allows for maximum expandability. If all of the REAL variables in your program are stored in the db, then you have no problem changing it, if, let's say, to new entries must be accomodated for.

But, if you have 100% static data, then, by all means, put it whereever you want (though I would still like to keep the data centralized). This occurs so rarely, that this may not even be useful. Using perl on flat-files (especially CGIs on the same file) are dangerous since race conditions may occur and corrupt data. In this case, you may need to use a non-perl mutex server (like the one I'm writing now). So, 100% static, read-only data it is, then! Well, you might as well make it a constant var, then, eh?

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