Perl Golf Apocalypse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Perl Golf Apocalypse (PGA) is a Perl coding competition with the objective of solving a basic programming task with the smallest perl code possible. The competition has its roots in the newsgroup comp.lang.perl.misc which had threads where each poster tried to solve a basic problem with shorter code than the previous post. This was called Perl Golf because in both Perl and physical golf the goal is to finish with the fewest (key)strokes.
A total of 10 teams participate in the competition with each team comprising up to 3 perl hackers. Each team is provided a computer to solve a set of simple problems by writing a short piece of Perl code. The submitted code is then tested and compared to the answers from the other teams. Altogether, the competition has 9 problems (akin to 9 holes in Golf) to solve. Each problem is simultaneously given to the teams and carries a specified time limit for solving. At the completion of first 4 problems the 5 lowest scoring teams are removed from the competition. A team gets 1 point if it correctly solves the problem, 6 more points if it solves with the fewest keystrokes (5 and 4 extra points for the first and second runners up) and 3 more points if it was the earliest to submit. Thus a team can earn a maximum of 10 points on one hole. After all the 9 problems are solved, the teams will be ranked by score from highest to lowest and the highest scoring team is declared the winner.
