A simplified example of the current code might be:

while(1){ 
    # a bunch of stuff
    $command = some calculated command;
    $args = some calculated args;
    $proc{"$command $args"} = Proc::Background->new("$command $args 1>
+&2 >some.log") unless $proc{"$command $args"}->alive;
    # a bunch of stuff
}
[download]

In this example, $command is being spawned off and must bring up a new process every time. I'd rather just be able to, say, repeatedly write "$args 1>&2 >some.log\n" to a pipe and then have the new line fork off a process from a $command that has already been initialized -- with something analogous to "->alive" to tell me when it is ok to fork off another similar $command.