#!/bin/perl
use strict;

# setup shared resource between children and parent
my @resource = qw(thing1 thing2 another_thing some more things which must be more than the pool of processes);
my @todo = (0..$#resource); # indexes of shared resources to process
my $parent = $$;
my @children;

# spawn pool of child processes

for (1..10) {
        # setup 2 way communication (pipe?)
        ...
    
        my $pid;
        unless ($pid = fork()) {
                # child process

                # stop if signaled
                local $SIG{HUP} = sub { $end = 1 };

                # work until signaled to die
                while(1) {
                        # read instruction from parent 
                        my $message = ...

                        # if finished let the child die
                        if ($end or $message eq "END") {
                            # send message that child is exiting 
                            ...
                            exit();
                        # if we have recieved an index to a shared resource to process do so
                        } elsif ($message =~ /^[0-9]+/) {
                            if ($message >= @resource) {
                                # send message that child is exiting 
                                ...
                                die "Resource unavailable\n";
                            }
                            
                            # process shared resource
                            process($resource[$message]);
                        } else {
                            # send message that child is exiting 
                            ...
                            die "Caught unexpected communication\n";
                        }
                }

        }
        push @children, $pid;
}

# keep count of the number of living children
$kids = @children;
print "Forked $kids children\n";

# send messages to children to begin processing
... for(@todo[0..$#children]);

while (@children > 0) {
    # read messages from children into $message and $child
    ... 
    # receive index of shared resource if complete
    if ($message =~ /^[0-9]+$/) {
        # remove from todo list
        @todo = grep { $_ != $message } @todo;
        last unless (@todo); # stop if no more to do
        
        # message $child to do next @todo item
        ...
    } elsif($message eq "END") { # message from child of exit
        # remove child from pool
        @children = grep { $_ != $child } @children;
    }
}

# make sure the children have stopped
kill 'HUP', @children;

print "Complete\n";