IMO, database abstraction is useful. But, mapping tables to Perl classes isn't any abstraction at all. It's exposing the details of your database layout to your program - quite the opposite of abstraction.

I've seen the following design a few times, and it's my favourite:

    +------+  +------+  +------+
    | App. |  | App. |  | App. |  ....
    +------+  +------+  +------+

    +----------------------------+
    | Shared application library |
    +----------------------------+

    +----------------------------+
    | Database Interface Library |
    +----------------------------+
                                                 Application
------------------------------------------------------------
                                                 Database
    +--------------+  +--------------+
    | Stored Proc. |  | Stored Proc. |  ....
    +--------------+  +--------------+

    +-------+  +-------+  +-------+
    | Table |  | Table |  | Table | ....
    +-------+  +-------+  +-------+

Each layer only talks to the layers directly above or below it. Perhaps overkill for a simple web application, and maybe not suitable for an agile environment, but the application not knowing anything about the table structure gives more freedom than one initially would think.

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