Here's the answer to the direct question: my $script = int(rand(10)) +1; There's no need to give it an initial seed (via srand) in versions later than 5.004.

However, based on what else you've said, I'd recommend looking into mod_perl (if you run Apache), FastCGI (if you run something else) or ISAPI if you run IIS. Using additional scripts will require separate instances of the Perl interpreter (in the normal case) with additional startup penalties and memory usage. Those are two bugaboos in web programming.

Mod_perl, and ISAPI avoid the startup penalty by embedding a Perl interpreter in the server process, caching the compiled bytecode, and keeping the script active (but sleeping) until it is needed. FastCGI does something similar.