This is a more general kind of question.

I've been working with PERL for about 5 years now, doing exclusively web-based applications, mostly for database interaction, content management and generation, data manipulation, etc. These have ranged from the trivial, like formmail, to the more involved, like a server-driven custom thin-browser with facilites for manipulating tabular data online. So far, I've been able to do all the server-side processing of everything any client has ever been able to dream up, using basic perl (you know, hashes, regex's, control structures, etc) and the CGI and DBI modules.

I wish I had reason to discuss PERL::ExoticModule, or the evils of forking, or whatever, but work has never brought me to these places.

My question, finally: Have I been leading a sheltered life, or am I an accidental wise-man having unwittingly avoided solutions that need these other things? Should I really be learning all I can about these other things to make best use of PERL? Or is some of this other stuff marginal and/or just for elegance?

In reply to Life beyond CGI and DBI by punchcard_don

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