The WDVL
is maintained by one full-time and two part-time personnel.
There are 1,600 pages, and adding new content,
updating the
glossary and
navigation
pages such as the
Top 100 and the
site map,
etc., etc., while keeping them in a consistent but flexible
style,
with a minimum of bad links - could be an overwhelming
nightmare. Are we superhuman ? What's our secret ?
Read on...
This article describes how
Perl
has been used in the
construction and operation of The WDVL. Our method
provides an alternative or supplement to the use of
commercial products or unassisted use of text editors to
create HTML pages; it provides most of the benefits of
both for those
webmasters
who are proficient programmers.
Almost every WDVL page is generated by some Perl script. We have used
this approach for several years now (since 1994) because it automates
much of the process of creating and maintaining a large site (~1600
pages), while allowing us the flexibility of fine-control over the look
and feel of the site. This is a low-cost alternative (or supplement)
to the use of commercial site management products, suitable for those
webmasters with programming skills.
We also use Perl for a few
CGI
programs, e.g. to process data sent via
the comments or site submission forms. Perl/CGI is the oldest web
interaction technology, and in spite of the arrival of newer
technologies such as
Java and
JavaScript,
Perl/CGI is still a solid
and useful platform for many applications.
This article describes our home-grown Perl scripts,
all of which are available for download.
Note that many of them require ht_subs.pl.
This software is provided freely on the understanding that the
Author will not be held responsible for any problems arising from it's
use, and that there is no support.
We wrote it for our own use, and you may well have to hack it
to suit your own needs.
If you make any general improvements
please feed back the new code, we will credit you in the source.
