Answers for anything except pod. Perl- the fastest script language known. You can do more in one line of perl than entire routines of other languages. PERFECT for CGI, and System Administration. They even use PERL on the Mars lander.

sub getdate{

my ($datetype) = @_;
my($time) = ctime(time);
@datevalues = split(/\s+/,$time);
if ($datetype eq "year"){

return $datevalues[5];

}else{

return @datevalues;

}

1; #because the PERL gods demand an offering.