Obfuscated Perl Contest: Difference between revisions

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The '''Obfuscated Perl Contest''' was a competition for programmers of [[Perl]] which was held annually between 1996 and 2000. Entrants to the competition aimaimed to write "devious, inhuman, disgusting, amusing, amazing, and bizarre Perl code" <ref>[http://www.tpj.com/documents/s=1286/sam03020012/ Perl Journal link] You may need to subscribe to the Perl Journal to be able to view this link, which is the source of the quote given.{{Dead link|date=September 2009}}</ref>. It was run by ''The Perl Journal'' and took its name from [[The International Obfuscated C Code Contest]].<ref>{{cite book|pages=256|title=Advanced Perl Programming|author=Simon Cozens|publisher=O'Reilly|date=2005|isbn=0596004567|isbn13=9780596004569}}</ref>

==Contest==

The entries arewere judged on aesthetics, output and incomprehensibility. One entrant per year will gainreceived the ''Best of Show'' award.

Entrants arewere advised to try and demonstrate a range of Perl knowledge, whilstwhile being humorous, surprising and deceitful. Code which purposefully crashescrashed the judges' machines iswas not recommendeddiscouraged.

The competition iswas typically divided into four categories, which, in the mostlast<!-- recentreally last? --> contest, included:

* Create a diversionDiversion (limit of 2048 bytes if using Perl/Tk, 512 bytes otherwise)

* World Wide Wasteland (limit of 512 bytes)

* Inner Beauty (limit of 512 bytes)

* Best ''The Perl Journal'' (code which generatesgenerated the words ''The Perl Journal'', limit of 256 bytes)

==See also==

*[[Obfuscated code]]

*[[Just another Perl hacker]]

==References==

{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* {{cite book|title=Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture|author=Jon Orwant|chapter=Obfuscated Perl|publisher=O'Reilly|date=2003|isbn=0596003129|isbn13=9780596003128|pages=487&ndash;521}} &mdash; reprints of the announcements, made in ''The Perl Journal'' by Felix S. Gallo, of the Zeroth, First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth contests

==External links==

*[http://mysite.verizon.net/les.peters/id2.html 2000 Best of Show winner with explanation and commentary]