First of all, Anonymous Monk, thanks for the beautifully written script. I modified it somewhat and use it to display a random computer quote on my website. Click here to see it in a new window.

I have only two comments:

1. Use CGI.pm to write your HTML headers at least. In scripts which use forms there are additional benefits to using CGI.pm, but even here CGI.pm saves you the trouble of remembering the syntax for the http header.
2. The use of srand is optional in newer versions of Perl, such as 5.6.

If you want to see my modified script in all its beauty here it is:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
# srand; srand is not needed when using modern versions of Perl such a
+s 5.6
use CGI qw/:standard/; # CGI is a standard perl module that helps writ
+e Perl CGI scripts. http://search.cpan.org/doc/LDS/CGI.pm-3.03_01/CGI
+.pm
my $quotes_file = 'quotes_file';

open (QFILE, "<$quotes_file")
  || die "Error: could not open $quotes_file:$!\n";
my @quotes = <QFILE>;
my $quote = $quotes[rand(@quotes)];

# Now use CGI.pm functions to write your HTML
print header,
        start_html('SIERRATHEDOG04\'S COMPUTER QUOTE OF THE DAY'),
        h1($quote), end_html();
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