Jeanne, If you know Perl you'll pick up PHP in a couple of weeks. (Its very similar to Perl). The advantages of using PHP over Perl are many. PHP integrates well with HTML (it was made for the web... unlike Perl). Yes, Perl is a very powerful language and can do almost anything, but PHP scores better on the Net. I was a CGI-Prel man before PHP came along. Now almost all my sites are PHP. Resources: Professional PHP (Wrox) PHP 4 in 24 hours (Sams) MySQL by Paul duBois (Since you would like to know MySQL sooner or later) By the by, check my tutorials on MySQL at http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/tutorials/sql/index.php3 Manish Regards Manish Sharma http://www.simplygraphix.com - Extreme web design http://www.fontmagic.com - Largest True Type Fonts archive on the Internet http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com - Tutorials, tips, tricks, graphics, resources and much more