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Mojolicious – Modern Perl Web Framework
Perl was one of the first languages to fuel dynamic web pages in the early internet days, mainly through CGI scripts — simple programs your web server runs to generate HTML on the fly. Although newer tech has taken the spotlight, Perl still powers tons of legacy systems and shines in rapid prototyping, automation, and backend tasks.
Today, Perl web development thrives with modern frameworks like Mojolicious and Dancer, making building REST APIs, web apps, and even real-time features surprisingly smooth. And don’t forget CPAN, Perl’s huge library of modules, which gives you tools for almost anything web-related — templating, database access, user sessions, and way more.
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts were Perl's first claim to web fame. Your server executes Perl scripts that output HTML. Here’s a simple "Hello World" CGI script:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "<html><body>";
print "<h1>Hello from Perl CGI!</h1>";
print "<img src="https://example.com/image.png">";
print "</body></html>";
Save this as hello.cgi, upload to your server's cgi-bin, and make it executable. Visiting that URL runs the script, sending back the generated HTML.
Mojolicious makes Perl web apps fast and fun. It’s super easy to spin up a web server, handle routes, and manage JSON APIs. Here’s a tiny example that runs a web server and responds with "Hello World" on the homepage:
use Mojolicious::Lite;
get '/' => {text => 'Hello from Mojolicious!'};
app->start;
Run this with perl app.pl daemon and hit http://localhost:3000 in your browser to see the magic. It’s minimal but powerful — Mojolicious also supports WebSockets, templates, sessions, and tons more.
CPAN is like the ultimate Perl toolbox. You can find modules for templating (e.g., Template), session management, form processing, database interfaces (DBI), and more. To install, just run:
cpan install Mojolicious
cpan install CGIMost Perl web apps leverage CPAN for extending functionality without reinventing the wheel.
use strict; and use warnings; to catch issues early and write clean, bug-resistant code.