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Softpanorama 92a (vol.9, No.3)

Computer Humor

The Perl Purity Test

Version 1.01, October 30, 1992

Written by Jeff Okamoto

With Help from Tom Christiansen

This is similar to other Purity Tests, of which perhaps the most famous is the Unisex, Omnisexual Purity Test that can be found in soc.singles. Additions are welcome. Please send them to [email protected]

All questions begin with "Have you ever..." Answer each question with a "yes" or "no". Keep track of how many "yes" answers you give. When finished, subtract that number from the total number of questions, then divide by the number of questions to get a percentage. This percentage is your perl purity. There are 125 questions in this version.


Usage

... rewritten a Unix command in perl?

... rewritten a DOS command in perl?

... emulated a kernel feature inside a program in perl?

... written a compressor/decompressor using pack?

... written scripts that generate other scripts?

... used undocumented features?


Variables

... used reserved keywords as variable names?

... used $x, @x, and %x in a script?

... used $x, @x, %x, and *x in a script?

... not gotten confused when you used $x, @x, %x, and *x all in that script?

... written a script with no alphabetic characters in it?

... no alphanumeric characters in it?

... used variables with control-characters other than ones already defined?

... created variables at runtime?


Lists

... used lists of lists?


Associative Arrays

... used associative array operators on the main symbol table?


Functions

... created functions at runtime?

... written a function that returns different types? (e.g., scalar, list, etc.)

... called a subroutine with the & operator and no arguments so that the

child function inherited what remains of the caller’s argument stack, @_?

... changed function definitions on the fly?

... used wantarray?

... returned a "0 but true" scalar?


Loop Controls

... used do BLOCK inside an EXPR?

... used loop controls (e.g., last, next, etc.) from inside a signal handler?

... created a loop label at runtime?


Operators

... used the scalar ".." operator?

... used it with things other than line numbers, array indices, or regexps?

... used syscall?


Searching and Replacing

... used the /e switch?

... used the /ee switch?

... used a /eee or higher number of e’s in a switch?

 


Handles

... used arrays of file handles?

... used indirect file handles?

... used doubly indirect file handles?

... used a directory handle as a file handle?

... and gotten away with it?

... used a file handle as a directory handle?

... and gotten away with it?

 


Regexps

... used all nine sets of parentheses in a regexp?

... used more than nine sets of parentheses in a regexp?

... used nested parentheses in a regexp?

... wished for an equivalent to LISP’s meta-close character "]", which closes all currently open parentheses?


Grep

... used grep on non-arrays?

... nested grep within another grep (for a total of two greps)?

... nested up to five greps within one statement?

... nested more thann five greps within one statement?


Evals

... written self-modifying evals?

... used eval to test for features your brain-damaged version of Unix doesn’t have?

... used eval/die to emulate setjmp/longjmp?

... nested an eval inside another eval (for a total of two nested evals)?

... used up to five nested evals?

... used more than five nested evals?


References

... used references?

... used lists of references?

... used associative arrays of references?

... lost your referents and didn’t care?

 


I/O

... used stream sockets?

... used datagram sockets?

... used RPC?


Debugging

... used the -D flag?

... used the -D1024 flag?

... figured out what all that debugging info meant?

... used the perl debugger?

... modified the perl debugger?

 


Packages

... written your own package?

... used packages to emulate structures?

... referenced a package’s symbol table via %_packagename?


User Subroutines

... gotten frustrated with the documentation of how to link in user subroutines?

... written a subroutine to be linked in with uperl.o so that your routine can be called from a perl script?

... replaced your version of perl with a version that has your subroutine(s)?


Scoping

... abused dynamic scoping by fudging @ARGV?

... abused dynamic scoping and changed the names of functions?


h2ph

... debugged the result of h2ph?

... hacked on h2ph?

 


c2ph

... debugged the result of c2ph?

... hacked on c2ph?

... ported gcc so you can use c2ph?


Heavy Wizardry

... used autoloading functions?


The Source of Taintedness

... used taintperl?

... tried to subvert the TAINT checks?

... read the source to see what happens if you successfully subvert the TAINT checks?

... changed the source to change what happens if you successfully subvert the TAINT checks?

... tried to read the source?

... found the comment "/* Heavy wizardry */" other than by deliberately searching for it now that you know it exists?


The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost

... sent mail to Larry asking for help?

... sent mail to Larry reporting a bug in perl?

... sent mail to Larry requesting a feature?

... gotten a reply from Larry (as opposed to his autoreplier)?

... gotten more than ten autoreplies from Larry?

... sent mail to Randal asking for help?

... sent mail to Randal reporting a bug in perl?

... sent mail to Randal with an idea for a JAPH script?

... sent mail to Tom asking for help?

... sent mail to Tom reporting a bug in perl?

... sent mail to Tom pointing out an error in his slides?

... had a requested feature be included in a subsequent set of patches?

... had up to five requested features included?

... had more than five requested features included?


Trivia

... written a "Just another Perl hacker" script?

... written five or less JAPH scripts?

... written more than five JAPH scripts?

... written any perl poems?

... run these perl poems?


Other Fun Stuff

... used unquoted strings?

... used them unintentionally?

... seeked on __DATA__ to reread your script?

... tried to use a bi-directional pipe?

... realized why this is a waste of time?

... used co-routines in a perl script?

... written a script that used command-line switches?

... used up to five command-line switches?

... more than five command-line switches?

... written a script with its own man page embedded in it?

... counted how many perl functions are overloaded?


The Torah and Talmud of Perl

... referred to the Perl book?

... bought the Perl book?

... bought multiple copies because you wore out the previous copies?

... owned more than one edition of the Perl book?

... owned more than one copy of every edition of the Perl book?

... wondered why Larry and Randall chose a camel for the cover?

... found out why Larry and Randall chose a camel?

... read comp.lang.perl?

... posted to comp.lang.perl?

... applied a kill file to comp.lang.perl?

 

Perl is Copyright © 1989, 1990, 1991 by Larry Wall The Perl Book, "Programming Perl", is written by Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, published by O’Reilly and Associates, Inc. ISBN 0-937175-64-1


Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotesSomerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose BierceBernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOSProgramming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC developmentScripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-MonthHow to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D


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Created: May 16, 1997; Last modified: March 12, 2019