I have worked with consultants, and am a consultant myself. These comments are based on two observations- this is a monolithic application; and it must be a tough nut to crack if ovid can't whip through it in an afternoon...

The best use of a perl consultant would be on an easily tractable/dividable problem, with available resources such as documentation and staff who can explain the details, and a comfortable deadline.

It looks like this project has none of these. Time-constrained triage of a large, badly written program where the coder has left is probably as difficult a consulting gig as I can imagine.

It seems to me you need to knock down as many obstacles as possible. I would suggest hiring as expert a coder as you can find, who comes well recommended by others, and who has an established track record finishing difficult projects within similar time constraints as your project. Prepare to be sanguine about the deadline when the consultant has a look at the code and suggests twice as long as you think you have.

Don't hire an additional consultant with the expectation it will go twice as fast, and if that still sounds like a good idea, read The Mythical Man Month first.

It is also possible the best option is to head for a rewrite now.

___
-DA
> perl -MPOSIX -le '$ENV{TZ}="EST";print ctime(1000000000)'
Sat Sep  8 20:46:40 2001
[download]