Perl for Web Site Management

Acknowledgments

I owe a deep debt to Larry Wall. Whether he knew he was creating such a wonderful tool for accidental programmers like me, or whether that was just a happy side-effect of his creating a uniquely useful tool for people like himself, I will always be grateful to him for Perl.

Others in the Perl community who loom large in my personal list of heroes are Tom Christiansen, Mark-Jason Dominus, Tom Phoenix, Larry Rosler, and Nathan Torkington. I’d like to thank them on behalf of newbies everywhere. Even more than their prodigious knowledge of Perl, I’m in awe of the dedication they display in using their knowledge to help those just starting out.

At O’Reilly & Associates, I want to thank Tim O’Reilly, both for greenlighting this book, and for his vision in creating a series of books, conferences, and web sites that make learning about these technologies so much fun. I also would like to thank Richard Koman, Andy Oram, Paula Ferguson, and Linda Mui for their editorial assistance, and the following technical reviewers for their comments on the initial draft: Elaine Ashton, Scott Davenport, Joe Johnston, Nathan Patwardhan, Bill Peña, and Tom Phoenix.

I am very grateful to William Cobert and John Bethune at Canon Communications for giving me a chance to change careers. Among many others who helped me during that time, I want to single out Jennifer Field and Kate Leachman, graphic designers who joined me in making a breakneck transition to a new medium.

Among a long list of online acquaintances, I’d like to give special thanks to Dave Ewers, Ron Underwood, and Mark Thompson, for the many lessons they taught me in using the computer as a communications tool. Among the residents of the Ishar MUD (http://www.ishar.com/), I want to thank Clayton Bittle, Scott Book, John Brady, Sue Wen Chiao, Conner, James Crumpton, Cymoril, Jeremy Dewar, Dylan Hart, Matthew Hine, Aaron Hopkins, Dan Porter, Jayson Shenk, Jason Snyder, Jason Stone, and Jason Sylvester. Without them this book would almost certainly have been finished sooner, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as good a book.

At Cyberverse Inc. (http://www.cyberverse.com/), the best ISP I have ever found or ever expect to find, I want to give special thanks to Jay Smith and Greg Domeno. I’m sure that Greg, in particular, never dreamed how much handholding, late night support, and general education was included in a monthly $24.95 dial-up fee.

I’d also like to thank Dr. Jim Campos, principal of Main Elementary School in Carpinteria, California, and technology teacher Julie Cole. Working with them and their students on Main School’s entry in the 2000 International CyberFair competition (which forms the basis of the material presented in Chapter 14 through Chapter 17) was truly inspirational.

Finally, I want to thank my mom, who has waited a long time to be acknowledged in a book of mine. I’d also like to give an extra-special thanks to my wife Linda, and to my children Julia and William, for the many sacrifices they made so that I could write this book.