Games, Diversions & Perl Culture

Chapter 35. The Perl Whirl Quiz Show

Jon Orwant

This is the quiz show that I wrote in 2000 for Neil Bauman’s inaugural Perl Whirl, an Alaskan cruise that was also a Perl conference. The rules were the same as for my O’Reilly quiz shows, but since I couldn’t attend the cruise, Larry Wall stepped in as emcee. (For more information about Perl Whirls and other geek cruises, see http://geekcruises.com.)

You know the drill by now: one point per question, and calculate your score with the chart at the beginning of Chapter 31.

Toss-up Questions

Toss-up 1: Slashdot publicized a web server powered by an unlikely source. What is this starchy vegetable?

Toss-up 2: Fill in the blank: John Gilmore said, “The Net interprets _________________ as damage and routes around it. What is this term, synonymous with “restraint of expression”?

Toss-up 3: What is the name of the default package in Perl?

Toss-up 4: “I rescue kegs,” “creek guises,” and “Gee! Sick user!” are all anagrams of what phrase that should presumably be familiar to us all?

Toss-up 5: What special scalar variable contains the time at which your program began running?

Toss-up 6: The GD module used to use GIF as its primary image format, but thanks to Unisys enforcing its patent on LZW compression, GIF is no longer feasible. What image format does GD use now?

Toss-up 7: Which character is the modulus operator in Perl?

Toss-up 8: This proponent of literate programming uses an assembly language called MIX in his well-known computer science books. Who ...