Published by Prentice-Hall this is an multilevel book providing programmers with the software skills needed to develop compiled cgi-bin programs on the World Wide Web. Some of the advanced programs include an interactive chess game and a geometric star quilt. Both require sophisticated mathematical and software algorithms. More basic programs allow easy entry into the required skill for CGI programming and debugging. The author, Mark Felton, is in charge of a large international facility that exists behind a corporate firewall. In addition to being a senior programmer for wide band network applications, he is a member of the Mathematical Association of America and is the registered agent for Alpha Institute, a non-profit 501C that provides technical support to various groups. While it is not the intent of this book to provide cut and paste code, but rather to drive programmers into their own creative capabilities, code from the book can be downloaded. In addition a number of easy to access demo programs are provided:

• Errata - A list of known errors in the book.
• Who_are_you - This simple program demonstrates the ability to read server information from a CGI program.
• Simple_mailer - This program will let you input a string of information and send it out as an email. You can email yourself to see that it works.
• Star_quilt (also provided above) - This is a very advanced program which alters color maps in a GIF image. The star quilt is extremely complex geometry and provides image capabilities which can be used for advanced applications. The Star Quilt program was developed with Chris Cota to support the sale of Native American crafts.
• Chess - An interactive game that shows the ability to link CGI programs to embedded code. The chess game is linked to the zzzzzz algorithms which were used with permission.
• Socket API (pdf)
• Critiques & Responses
• Alarm handling - a method for complex CGI programs that may hang on your server.
• CGI FAQ