Another technology that you might seriously consider is the use of Mason. This is an open-source handler for Apache that interprets web pages much the same as PHP, and looks for embedded code.

Mason can be quick if it uses mod_perl as pages are cached as compiled objects in memory. Mason offers a debugging mode that displays compile errors to the web.

There are programming purists who don't like Mason, but I've used it professionally and found it a good compromise between developing CGI applications quickly and good web performance.

Have a look at the brief Mason Introduction - it offers the following example of a Mason-interpreted file:

    % my $noun = 'World';
    Hello <% $noun %>!
    How are ya?
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