In my real server, I *am* actually using Thread::Queue::Any to farm out work to my worker threads from my multiplexing server.

The code I posted is my (boilded down for SoPW) attempt at making my *mostly* non-blocking server *fully* non-blocking. (I see from Thelonius's suggestion that I may not have finished the job). The real server replaces the "file" code from the OP with a mechanism to send work to a Dispatcher thread which classifies the request, finds an appropriate handler class then farms the "work" out to a pool of worker threads.

I can't actually import Threads.pm into the multiplexing server's package as some "magic" internal to Threads.pm causes crashes in IO::Socket::SSL (actually XS from Net::SSLeay).

As for the excellently old-skool open "|blah" method of IPC, i would use it in a second (over say Thread::Queue::Any) if there was currently any problem with the IPC -- I do not believe this to be the case.

-David.