Perl Christmas Quiz

[Paul Fenwick]

Chris Jack wrote:
> I was feeling bored so decided to write a Perl Christmas quiz.

[SPOILERS]

All answers are from the top of my head, without any research....























> 1) Name as many different reasons as you can that Larry Wall has given 
> for how Perl came to be named (including where he has given them). Make
> up a brand new reason of your own.

Something about it originally being "Pearl", but there was already a
"Pearl", so the 'a' got dropped.

Something similar to the above, but the reason being that all good Unix
commands had four letters.

Something about it being called Gloria first of all, but that having bad
marital implications if the language didn't fare too well.

Something about a biblical reference to a "pearl of great price".

> 2) Name all the built in file handles in Perl.

STDIN/STDOUT/STDERR/ARGV/ARGVOUT/DATA.

> 3) Write a Perl function that takes two references to arrays and returns
> the intersect of them. If an entry appears n times in array 1 and m times
> in array 2, the output should list that entry min(n,m) times. Bonus mark
> for one line solutions.

use Perlmonks;

my $pm = Perlmonks->new;

$pm->post_homework(
	type => "array intersection",
	due  => "tomorrow",
);

> 4) How many different variable types are there in Perl? Be as sensibly
> voluminous in your answer as you are able.

Hashes.

Arrays.

Scalars:
	* Integers
	* Floats
	* Strings
	* Many of the above (eg, $! is a dualvar)
	* References
	* Regexps
	* Code references
	* Glob aka filehandle references.
	* Real filehandles, kind of
	* undef
	* Magic variables.

> 5) What animal is on the front of the Perl Cookbook (bonus mark for
> knowing both the first and second edition)?

Big horned sheep on the second edition.  I don't remember the first.  For
some reason my students keep asking about the big horned sheep.

> 6) What company was Larry Wall working for when he wrote Perl 1?

JPL.

> 7) What does the L in Randal L Schwartz stand for?

Libation.

> 8) Name a Perl module Leon (Brocard) has written (bonus mark if you've
> used it).

Acme::Buffy

> 9) When will Perl 6 be released?

It was released last week by Adam Kennedy at OSDC Australia.  At least,
Strawberry Perl 6 was.  Everyone not running on a Windows system will still
have to wait.

> 10) Who was the most important pioneer of Perl Poetry?

I should know this, but pass.

> 11) Write a limeric about Perl. Bonus mark for making it perl parseable.

	When programming Perl I use git,
	Which seems a very good fit.
	I can hack on the plane,
	And out in the rain,
	Cause there's More Than One Way to Do It.

Apologies to everyone, because the limerick is awful, and seems to be more
about revision control than Perl.

> 12) What year was CPAN founded in?

Before I knew Perl.

> 13) Think of a witty and/or interesting Perl Christmas quiz question and
> answer it.

Name three recipients of the White Camel award.

Sample answer:

	* Jacinta Richardson
	* Dave Cross
	* brian d foy

Cheerio,

	Paul

-- 
Paul Fenwick <pjf at perltraining.com.au> | http://perltraining.com.au/
Director of Training                   | Ph:  +61 3 9354 6001
Perl Training Australia                | Fax: +61 3 9354 2681