Hi,
I'm writing a Perl-based system to allow simple site content management through web forms. I'm a relative beginner to both Perl and CGI, although I have much experience with C, Visual Basic, and relational database programming. The system I'm writing is targeted to non-profits and small businesses, the kinds of outfits which typically will have sites hosted by an ISP, not on their own hardware with their own people to administer it. So my software will need to be (1) small, and (2) installable to a virtual domain cgi-bin path by FTP with normal owner permissions, not system admin and/or shell access. I've found that this cuts down on available technology quite dramatically. One hesitation I have is that most Perl modules assume that you can run an install procedure to "install" the module in your system. If an outfit has only FTP access to its virtual domain, not shell access or sysadm privilege, the only thing you can do is copy the module's files over from some other place you've installed them (such as my PC's hard drive). This seems to be working with two of the modules I've used so far (HTML::Template and AnyData::CSV), but I'm hesitant to rely too much on a lot of them. Obviously, you run a risk if a module has platform-specific functionality. I'm particularly shy of CGI.pm, both due to size and also uncertainty of if it can be "installed" by a simple file copy. I'd appreciate any advice anyone could give on the difficulties I might encounter in this endeavor, in particular module size and ability to install on an ISP-hosted virtual domain by FTP alone. Should I be convincing the ISP to install the modules in their /site/lib instead, rather than us putting them in our virtual domain? Is CGI.pm recommended in this situation? Any other issues you would foresee me having? (I already know I'll have to think through security at some point.) Thanks in advance for any replies. - John Brooking --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
