Question about creating a cgi script

[manish]

I need some help learning cgi and/or php. My goal is to write an application to use the pop protocol to get into a pop mailbox and then count the number of messages in the mailbox. Can somebody recommend a good starting point/web references/books that I can use? I know that there are a lot of security problems involved with this. I want to use this as a starting point to learn dynamic web page development. BTW, I am proficient in C/C++ programming.

Thanks