What is the best communicationmethod to use?
use inetd: it will launch your script with stdin/stdout connected to the socket.
browse /etc/inetd.conf, and see if you can understand how it works. if you can't, read man inetd, and ask again for doubts. it should be very easy, if you're not a total newbie. it will hide all the complexity and headaches of fork() and socket handling, and it will be *much* easier to debug.
oh, i almost forgot it: try not to do it that way :-) pietro.