SAMS Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours THIRD EDITION

Hour 21. Introduction to CGI

What You'll Learn in This Hour:

• The basics of how the Web works

• What you need to know before writing CGI

• How to write your first CGI program

There's no question in anyone's mind that the explosion in popularity of the Internet is mostly due to the World Wide Web. Since the introduction of the first graphical web browser in 1993, the Internet has expanded at a phenomenal rate—going from the number of hosts doubling every 20 months around 1993 to doubling every 12 months currently. The growth of private networks—intranets—has increased even more rapidly.

The content of the web has become more sophisticated since 1993, and the users of the web expect each web page to do more than simply show static (unchanging) web pages. ...