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5th Obfuscated Perl Contest Winners
strredwolf points out that
we have winners
of the Fifth Annual Obfuscated Perl Contest, noting, "Unfortunately, my virtual machine didn't win."
(Insert loser-condolences here.) BTW, I noticed problems with the code as printed: the winner of category 2 lacks a terminal quote, and I couldn't get the category 3 winner to compile even after fiddling with whitespace. Put up a webpage with code I can copy-paste-and-run,
email me,
and I'll update this story with your link.
is like hunting sea turtles. When they are laying eggs. On a beach. With a machine gun.
:)
Add an undermounted grenade launcher, and you've got the Obfuscated LISP contest.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
This is not a flamebait.
Anyone can run Perl code through a perl-built obfuscator. Heck, one of the winning entries was an obfuscated perl-built obfuscator. How... imaginative.
I have lost my hardcopy of the Obfuscated C contest entries, but it seemed like they had a lot more spirit, and thought about the artistic side, on more than one level.
For example, one winner of Obfuscated C wrote a simple maze generator. However, the source code to the maze generator was itself a maze, with whitespace passages going up and across and down through the code. To top it off, those whitespace passages that cut through the code spelled out the word "MAZE", if you stood back far enough to see it. The main variables used were m, a, z and e, as well.
The closest to 'artistic' Perl source that I have seen is the "RSA Dolphin," where the RSA algorithm is formatted to have the silhouette of a dolphin. That's still only one level of art.
[
It has been done. You can now write perl in Latin.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
are all here.
Yes, I have to say I was very impressed with these scripts. It's a display of impressive talent when your code is so obfuscated that even the compiler can't figure it out.
The coolest obfuscated C program I ever saw was a tic tac toe program. Basically, each time you ran it, it outputted source code in the form of a tic tac toe board. To get it to play the next move, you compiled the current board and ran it again.
(At least, this is how I remember it. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong).
-- Will quantum computers run imaginary-time operating systems?
When I heard about this, I was pretty surprised. I thought "obfuscated Perl" was redundant. If they want a challenge, how about a "Documented Perl" contest?
In this, the entrants must write a non-trivial application, entirely in Perl, that has to be completely portable across at least 3 implementations (including one on Windows) and at least 25,000 lines of code (not counting comments).
Judges will introduce a bug into each program that would be obvious if you knew what the program did. Each bug *must* involve a cascade from an ambiguous or subtle misuse one of Perl's much-heralded "Do what I mean" functions.
A panel of experienced Perl programmers will be given the programs to debug. The program that takes the least average time to debug wins.
That's a contest.
AG