In computing, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is an interface specification that enables web servers to execute an external program to process HTTP/S user requests.
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. Perl's first version was released in 1987. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was officially changed to Raku in October 2019.
Server-side scripting is a technique used in web development which involves employing scripts on a web server which produces a response customized for each user's (client's) request to the website. Scripts can be written in any of a number of server-side scripting languages that are available. Server-side scripting is distinguished from client-side scripting where embedded scripts, such as JavaScript, are run client-side in a web browser, but both techniques are often used together. The alternative to either or both types of scripting is for the web server itself to deliver a static web page.
NCSA Mosaic is a discontinued web browser, and one of the first to be widely available. It was instrumental in popularizing the World Wide Web and the general Internet by integrating multimedia such as text and graphics. It was named for its support of multiple Internet protocols, such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol, File Transfer Protocol, Network News Transfer Protocol, and Gopher. Its intuitive interface, reliability, personal computer support, and simple installation all contributed to its popularity within the web. Mosaic is the first browser to display images inline with text instead of in a separate window. It is often described as the first graphical web browser, though it was preceded by WorldWideWeb, the lesser-known Erwise, and ViolaWWW.
mod_perl is an optional module for the Apache HTTP server. It embeds a Perl interpreter into the Apache server. In addition to allowing Apache modules to be written in the Perl programming language, it allows the Apache web server to be dynamically configured by Perl programs. However, its most common use is so that dynamic content produced by Perl scripts can be served in response to incoming requests, without the significant overhead of re-launching the Perl interpreter for each request.
The Line Mode Browser is the second web browser ever created. The browser was the first demonstrated to be portable to several different operating systems. Operated from a simple command-line interface, it could be widely used on many computers and computer terminals throughout the Internet. The browser was developed starting in 1990, and then supported by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) as an example and test application for the libwww library.
HTTP pipelining is a feature of HTTP/1.1, which allows multiple HTTP requests to be sent over a single TCP connection without waiting for the corresponding responses. HTTP/1.1 requires servers to respond to pipelined requests correctly, with non-pipelined but valid responses even if server does not support HTTP pipelining. Despite this requirement, many legacy HTTP/1.1 servers do not support pipelining correctly, forcing most HTTP clients to not use HTTP pipelining.
The Web Server Gateway Interface is a simple calling convention for web servers to forward requests to web applications or frameworks written in the Python programming language. The current version of WSGI, version 1.0.1, is specified in Python Enhancement Proposal (PEP) 3333.
A dynamic web page is a web page constructed at runtime, as opposed to a static web page, delivered as it is stored. A server-side dynamic web page is a web page whose construction is controlled by an application server processing server-side scripts. In server-side scripting, parameters determine how the assembly of every new web page proceeds, and including the setting up of more client-side processing. A client-side dynamic web page processes the web page using JavaScript running in the browser as it loads. JavaScript can interact with the page via Document Object Model (DOM), to query page state and modify it. Even though a web page can be dynamic on the client-side, it can still be hosted on a static hosting service such as GitHub Pages or Amazon S3 as long as there is not any server-side code included.
Inter-Language Unification or ILU is a method for computer systems to exchange data, bridging differences in the way systems represent the various kinds of data. Even if two systems run on the same computer, or on identical computer hardware, many differences arise from the use of different computer languages to build the systems.
Catalyst is an open source web application framework written in Perl, that closely follows the model–view–controller (MVC) architecture, and supports a number of experimental web patterns. It is written using Moose, a modern object system for Perl. Its design is heavily inspired by frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, Maypole, and Spring.
Libwww is an early World Wide Web software library providing core functions for web browsers, implementing HTML, HTTP, and other technologies. Tim Berners-Lee, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), released libwww in late 1992, comprising reusable code from the first browsers.
Sean Michael Burke is a Perl programmer, author, and linguist. He was a columnist for The Perl Journal from 1998 and has written several dozen Perl modules for CPAN, as well as books for O'Reilly Media.
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen is a Danish engineer and computer scientist. He is best known for his pioneering work on the World Wide Web and subsequent work on computer network protocols.
CERN httpd is an early, now discontinued, web server (HTTP) daemon originally developed at CERN from 1990 onwards by Tim Berners-Lee, Ari Luotonen and Henrik Frystyk Nielsen. Implemented in C, it was the first web server software.
The Arena browser was one of the first web browsers for Unix. Originally begun by Dave Raggett in 1993, development continued at CERN and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and subsequently by Yggdrasil Computing. Arena was used in testing the implementations for HTML version 3.0, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), and libwww. Arena was widely used and popular at the beginning of the World Wide Web.
Plack is a Perl web application programming framework inspired by Rack for Ruby and WSGI for Python, and it is the project behind the PSGI specification used by other frameworks such as Catalyst and Dancer. Plack allows for testing of Perl web applications without a live web server.
FastCGI is a binary protocol for interfacing interactive programs with a web server. It is a variation on the earlier Common Gateway Interface (CGI). FastCGI's main aim is to reduce the overhead related to interfacing between web server and CGI programs, allowing a server to handle more web page requests per unit of time.
Agora was a World Wide Web email browser and was a proof of concept to help people to use the full internet. Agora was an email-based web browser designed for non-graphic terminals and to help people without full access to the internet such as in developing countries or without a permanent internet connection. Similar to W3Gate, Agora was a server application designed to fetch HTML documents through e-mail rather than http.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Perl programming language:
