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Obfuscated Perl Contest
open-in-new
<h2 id="contest">Contest</h2> <p>The entries were judged on aesthetics, output and incomprehensibility. One entrant per year received the <i>Best of Show</i> award. Entrants were advised to try and demonstrate a range of Perl knowledge, while being humorous, surprising and deceitful. Code which purposely crashed the judges' machines was discouraged. </p><p>The competition was typically divided into four categories, which, in the last contest, included: </p> <ul><li>Create a Diversion (limit of 2048 bytes if using Perl/Tk, 512 bytes otherwise)</li> <li>World Wide Wasteland (limit of 512 bytes)</li> <li>Inner Beauty (limit of 512 bytes)</li> <li>Best <i>The Perl Journal</i> (code which generated the words <i>The Perl Journal</i>, limit of 256 bytes)</li></ul> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Obfuscated_code/703yhvVq">Obfuscated code</a></li> <li><a href="/facts/Just_another_Perl_hacker/7PU6cNYu">Just another Perl hacker</a></li></ul> <h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2> <ul><li>Jon Orwant (2003). "Obfuscated Perl". <i>Games, Diversions, and Perl Culture</i>. O'Reilly. pp. 487–521. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 978-0-596-00312-8. — reprints of the announcements, made in <i>The Perl Journal</i> by Felix S. Gallo, of the Zeroth, First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth contests</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>The 3rd Annual Obfuscated Perl Contest Felix Gallo – Perl Journal (You may need to subscribe to the Perl Journal to be able to view this link, which is the source of the quote given.) <a href="http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol3_2/tpj0302-0012.html" target="_blank">http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol3_2/tpj0302-0012.html</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Simon Cozens (2005). Advanced Perl Programming. O'Reilly. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-596-00456-9. <a href="978-0-596-00456-9" target="_blank">978-0-596-00456-9</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>