Phil!
Yeah man I upload all my Perl code right onto the server and test it there... Even when traffic is running through it! As soon as I upload it, I do a "perl -c file.cgi" -- never tried the -w switch -- maybe it's useful? ;)
Once you get used to coding in Perl (or programming in general) you will usually get your code all right the first time -- and if anything goes wrong, you can usually figure out the problem quickly because most programming errors are easily spotted just like you said -- missing semi-colon, unmatched {'s, and non-escaped HTML quotes and email addresses ;) \" and \@
Besides women, a good beer, or a juicy hamburger, there's nothing more satisfying than coding an entire program in Perl, uploading it, and having it pass the perl -c test the first time w/o errors ;)
hehe
PHP is very cool too but not nearly as powerful as Perl. Use both!
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...from the nectar of the Bone flows all that clicks...