Got the server part of the application done. You fill out and submit a form, the server computes and returns the total price and requests verification of the order, and then the order is submitted by email.

This is the first form-handling CGI script I've written with some confidence in my Perl comprehension, and the code is fairly tight relative to my previous efforts. I also stole a few snippets from the Perl Cookbook, a terrific compendium of small programming recipes useful to Perl programmers of all skill levels. Perl is a nifty and practical programming language that happens to be extremely well documented and easy to learn. Browse around perl.com if you get a chance.

Now I have to write some fun and interesting JavaScript to manipulate various types of form elements on the fly. It can be pretty confusing switching mental gears between Perl and JavaScript! After a full day of JavaScript coding, I couldn't remember how to determine the length of an array in Perl. In JavaScript you can append '.length' to just about any object; in Perl you simply examine the array in scalar context, and you have its length. I couldn't remember that for a few moments. It felt weird.