I'm guessing that you are writing this code and then uploading it to a remote site for rendering. This might explain your testing it from the cgi-bin rather than from a command line. This is less than ideal, because being able to test compile success is much easier when you get a direct response.

Even when you test code through a web server, Perl very nicely reports what it doesn't like, and you can find these reports in your web server error log. For most typographic errors, this will give enough information to correct code compile failures.

Once you are comfortable with the web development process, you can then use 'warn' alerts to determine execution process results and errors.

Of course, being able to test your code locally first is best.