=head1 TITLE

 [DRAFT] Synopsis 27 - Perl Culture


=head1 AUTHOR

Brian Ingerson <ingy@cpan.org>


=head1 VERSION

 Maintainer:    Brian Ingerson <ingy@cpan.org>
 Date:          12 Apr 2005
 Last Modified: 12 Apr 2005

This document describes the phenomenon known as "Perl Culture". Perl
Culture being what it is, this may become the largest of the synopses.
(It grows in a B<very> big petri dish!)

=head1 THE CPAN DRINKING GAME

Many people love beer. Many Perl hackers are people. Thus what better
way to begin this draft (no pun intended) than to describe the CPAN
Drinking Game.

=head2 EQUIPMENT

The following equipment is best for an enjoyable round of CPAN Drinking:

=over

=item *

4 or more Perl Hackers.

=item *

One official. This person:

  - Validates the module names against the master list 
  - Keeps track of the score 
  - Keeps track of whose turn it is
  - Keeps track of the direction of play
  - Keeps track of time intervals
  - Keeps track of what valid modules have been named
  - Keeps track of how many cans of beer each hacker drinks

They may or may not be a Perl Hacker and they may or may not drink beer.

=item *

Many cans of beer. (Number of cans is some coefficient of Number of
Hackers times Knowledge of CPAN times Body Mass). Beer drinking hackers
will instinctively know this number.

=item *

Copy of
L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz>.

=item *

A stopwatch or some kind of timer. Preferably written in Perl.

=back

=head2 Rules Of Play

=over

=item 1.

Start by having all hackers form some type of polygonal shape. A circle
will do fine.

=item 2.

Each hacker opens a new can of beer.

=item 3.

The hacker with the most modules on CPAN starts the play by naming a CPAN
module.

=item 4.

The official will validate that the module exists. Names given must be
those of B<modules>, I<not> B<module distributions>. If you don't know
the difference you really shouldn't be playing this game.

=item 5.

If the module name is valid then play proceeds clockwise to the person
(N - 1) number of positions away, where N is the number of nodes in the
module name. The hacker receives (N - 2) points.

For instance if the hacker says:

    Bundle::Business::Shipping::DataTools

then play would go 3 hackers to the left and they would receive 2 points.
If they said:

    Acme

then that hacker would have to go again and would receive -2 points. The
reason it is -2 instead of -1 is described in Rule #10.

=item 6.

If the hacker's guess is invalid, they must drink and then give another
answer. 3 wrong answers in one turn retires that hacker from the game
and play proceeds to the adjacent hacker. Every wrong answer receives (1
- N) points.

=item 7.

A valid module name may be used only once. A reused name is considered
invalid as in Rule #6, except the hacker receives (0 - N) points.

=item 8.

A hacker has up to 2 minutes to give a valid answer. In addition they
must take a drink every 30 seconds. The official should call out the
drinking intervals. Failure by the hacker to meet these requirements,
retires them from the game.

=item 9.

The next hacker in turn must name a module whose first node begins with
the same letter as the first letter in the last node of the previous
valid module name. To be pragmatic (no pun intended) letters are
considered case insensitive.

=item 10.

If a hacker names a module whose first and last nodes begin with the
same letter, then the order of play is reversed and the hacker receives
double the number of points.

=item 11.

A hacker is allowed to skip their turn and receive 0 points if they
choose to drink an entire 12 ounce can of beer (within the 2 minute time
limit). This is formally known as "taking a Randal". Each hacker may
only take a Randal only once per game.

=item 12.

If the previous turn, for whatever reason, did not end with a valid
answer, the next hacker in turn may name a module beginning with any
letter they choose. All other rules apply.

=item 13.

After all but one hackers have retired, the remaining hacker must name
one more module correctly (given the same rules as above). If they give
a valid answer they receive 5 bonus points in addition to the points for
that round.

After this round, the game is over and the official announces the
scores.

=back

=head2 Objective

The hacker with the most points at the end of the game wins. In the case
of a tie, the winner is the hacker to have consumed the most beer.

=head2 History

This game was played by acme, autrijus, clkao, gugod, ingy, mugwump
and obra on the east coast of Taiwan in April 2005. The game was
brought from London by acme. ingy later added the points system and a
few other rules.

