http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=30913

Unicef2k has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I just got a job that requires me to write CGI scripts with Perl. I'll sometimes write scripts that'll interact with a mysql database so I'll be using the DBI module. By the way, I've learn some perl at college. Anywho, what book would you recommend I buy?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl Books to buy
by cianoz (Friar) on Sep 03, 2000 at 15:57 UTC
Re: Perl Books to buy
by merlyn (Sage) on Sep 03, 2000 at 14:01 UTC
    If you're using CGI and DBI together because the boss requires it, I recommend
    "What Color is Your Parachute?" (2000 edition)
    Or convince your boss that you should be using mod_perl (which can cache the connections through Apache::DBI) instead of CGI.

    The startup time to reconnect to a DBI database on each CGI hit is fairly expensive for all but toy sites.

    -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

    p.s. yeah, it's a joke post, but the message here is serious. {grin}
      I'll second this!

      I learnt this the very worst way possible - having to deal with a suddenly popular web site! The poor webserver had a load average of 20 and each CGI was taking 20 seconds or more to complete ;-) Each CGI took about 1 second to run on an unloaded server, but as soon as we were getting more than 1 per second it exhibited this appalling run away behaviour!

      Now-a-days the webserver deals with over 100,000 mod_perl requests per day, and the load average never creeps above 1!

      Not everyone uses Apache though (we weren't at the time) which constrains the use of mod_perl (and incidentally is why I stick to Apache::Registry - so the scripts can still run under cgi if necessary on a different webserver).

      Has anyone done an ISAPI/NSAPI mod_perl(ish) implemetation yet?

Re: Perl Books to buy
by ColtsFoot (Chaplain) on Sep 03, 2000 at 14:05 UTC