i am teaching myself perl. i want to have two scrips play r-p-s and a third to keep score. for now it will be on a single computer. then over a network. im using linux.
That's a horrible way. You probably want a host and a client, and just have the client and host send the RPS to eachother, and have the program keep it a secret until the host realises that both have been sent, then it tells the client to show what each player picked and who won. The host will keep track of all the data and just send it to the client.
Unless you really want to have a dedicated host that two clients connect to, but it still would be the same principle.