I am usually not a fan of CGI/mod_perl related programming but sometimes the best solution lies along this path.
My current task is to replace the rather limited league and statistics management of EA SPORT's NHL93 with a better one. I want every possible figure that is either to be found in the league's data files or that can be calculated with some statistical methods to be available. Based upon those values, this thing shall eventually be able to create a follow-up league based upon the previous year's outcome. Roosters shall remain the same minus some obligatory retirements and trades between teams. The players' strengths should be modified so that it reflects their performance in the preceeding season.
Another thing I hope to find out thusly is why some teams are so much better than others although they don't necessarily have better players. For that I calculated the expected value of each strength parameter and its standard deviation for all the players on each team in the hope that this would shed some light on it. It didn't really, so I have to refine my methods and do even more calculations.
Anyway, all this made me install apache2 plus mod_perl2 this afternoon. The installation from source was pleasantly swift and straight-forward. Likewise the configuration after I realized that I had to set PerlResponseHandler in httpd.conf.
Then I installed HTML::Table which I use in connection with CGI.pm's HTML generating functions. I do HTML so seldom that I constantly have to look things up on how to create a form, a table etc. Annoying enough to have libraries create the HTML code for me. Now one has to look very carefully to realize that those are .cgi scripts at all.
