I wouldn't claim to be a good programmer, but I would point out that back then my exposure to PHP was PHP version 3, and version 4 was only just getting established.
It's easy to see in hindsight that mod_perl was a mistake, but back then it was hardly obvious - in fact it seemed like mod_perl was poised to take over.
Personally I only switched to PHP around 2003/2004 when I realized it was more productive than perl, so I'm not faulting you at all.
I would have chosen the exact same language as you in 2001. Or maybe ColdFusion if it was a windows shop.
PS. Sorry for coming across as critical, I didn't mean it that way. I was talking only in a retrospective kind of view.
Personally I don't think mod_perl was the issue. It was the lack of a decent lightweight framework for web apps. They did appear eventually (Dancer, Mojolicious), but too late once they were mature enough.
It's easy to see in hindsight that mod_perl was a mistake, but back then it was hardly obvious - in fact it seemed like mod_perl was poised to take over.
Personally I only switched to PHP around 2003/2004 when I realized it was more productive than perl, so I'm not faulting you at all.
I would have chosen the exact same language as you in 2001. Or maybe ColdFusion if it was a windows shop.
PS. Sorry for coming across as critical, I didn't mean it that way. I was talking only in a retrospective kind of view.