Editing Obfuscated Perl Contest

{{Short description|Perl programming competition}}
The '''Obfuscated Perl Contest''' was a competition for programmers of [[Perl]] which was held annually between 1996 and 2000.  Entrants to the competition aimed to write "devious, inhuman, disgusting, amusing, amazing, and bizarre Perl code".<ref>[http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol3_2/tpj0302-0012.html 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.)</ref> It was run by ''The Perl Journal'' and took its name from the [[International Obfuscated C Code Contest]].<ref>{{cite book|page=256|title=[[Advanced Perl Programming]]|author=Simon Cozens|publisher=O'Reilly|year=2005|isbn=978-0-596-00456-9}}</ref>

== Contest ==
The entries were judged on aesthetics, output and incomprehensibility. One entrant per year received the ''Best of Show'' 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.

The competition was typically divided into four categories, which, in the last<!-- really last? --> contest, included:
* Create a Diversion (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 generated 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|year=2003|isbn=978-0-596-00312-8|pages=487–521}} — reprints of the announcements, made in ''The Perl Journal'' by Felix S. Gallo, of the Zeroth, First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth contests

[[Category:Perl]]
[[Category:Computer humour]]
[[Category:Ironic and humorous awards]]
[[Category:Programming contests]]
[[Category:Recurring events established in 1996]]
[[Category:Recurring events disestablished in 2000]]
[[Category:Software obfuscation]]